Urban Chaos: Riot Response

The Good
Well, for starters, I love nothing more than a good brutal smash-fest game, and the riot shield alone provided more than enough entertainment for me. This game has somewhat decent visuals for the Xbox, and storyline is a bit thin, but able to be followed. A neat perk about it is that depending on how good you do in a mission [# of head-shots, non-lethal captures, etc...] you get more medals. More medals mean new and better versions of your current arsenal. A good feature is the ability to go back and re-play missions you didn't do so well on to earn more medals, so replay value is pretty darn good. The sounds are excellent, especially during head-shots and skull shatters. Urban Chaos is a definite buy on my list.

The Bad
Only a few things got me a little irked. For starters, there's not much for personalization in the story line. It's one simple path you must follow or you cannot continue. I also wish that multiplayer would allow bots for a little skull-shattering fun. The last thing which is not that big of an issue, but it gets slightly annoying is that when you're in front of a mob of bad guys in masks, they use the same little catchphrases sometimes. "C'mon Mason, you a chicken?" that sort of thing. It rarely happened, but it kind of threw me off every now and then. Other than that, not too bad at all.

The Bottom Line
Urban Chaos is the fulfillment of dreams you never knew you had. I love to watch a couple of riot videos and "Cops" before playing just to get into the mood. Hahaha!

The Good
I'm going to start by saying this: This has got to be my favorite game of all time. Now, I really like that someone finally made a great game that involves busting a lot of criminals.

The story, mainly fleshed out through live action news reports before each mission, is well paced and interesting, even involving some plot twists.

The enemies, a vicious and vile street gang called The Burners, who look like a horde of Jason Vorhees clones wielding sawed-off shotguns and meat cleavers, are a blast to kill.

Now, the weapons in this game are just awesome. You start the game with a basic handgun, but as you progress through missions, you can pick up Burner weapons, like sawed-off shotguns, meat cleavers, Uzis, molotov cocktails, and some others, or play bonus missions to unlock new police weapons like the assault rifle, high powered shotgun and stun gun. Although your most important piece of equipment is probably the riot shield, which can be used to deflect projectiles, physical blows, and explosions. You can also light people on fire with the stun gun, or beat them to death with the riot shield, which is just plain fun. You can also upgrade your weapons by collecting medals.

The Bad
Well, sometimes some of the design choices in this game bugged me. In order to unlock the emergency situations required to unlock and upgrade some weapons, you must capture a gang leader located in each level. Of you kill him, you will either have to replay the entire mission in order to capture him, or reload your last checkpoint, but doing the means that you don't get the medal for not using a checkpoint.

The enemy AI is inconsistent sometimes. Sometimes the will just run at you like idiots just begging to be killed, while other times they will stay back a spit out gunfire until you are dead.

The Bottom Line
Over all, I'd call this a pretty great game. It has a lot of fun moments, a one-of-a-kind story, and some pretty solid gameplay. If you love FPS games and hate criminals, this one's for you.

The Good
I just want to start of by saying I love this game. I'm personally not a big fan of first person shooters, so when I first rented this game I was a little leery, but once I was finished, I went right out and bought this game.

The enemies are very demented, they almost remind you of Manhunt or almost like a bunch a Jason Vorhees clones running at you, plus the amount of them running around keeps you blasting away, almost like cockroaches, you shoot one and three swarm you.

The weaponry in the game is awesome, everything from the assault rifle to shotguns and even the dreaded mini-gun which you can unlock, which will let you wipe out everything in its path. Plus the shield they give you really helps out in tough situations.

The Havok physics engine really does the game justice, they fall and react almost like a real human being and the slow-motion kill cam really makes the game very fun and interesting.

Another plus is the fast loading times, restarting at a previous checkpoint is virtually instant, making it very fun if you like to go back and play around with a certain area (my personal favorite is in the City Hall mission, just before you go on the roof to deal with the hostage situation where the one Burner will jump down from the hatch, it's a blast to kill this guy over and over and over and....well you get the idea)

The Bad
There are a few things that bothered me with this game, one of which is the support units that follow you, don't get me wrong its nice to have a cop running with you helping you out, but at times they have been accidentally shot when you try to go after a Burner. Plus searching down a medic for a medi-pak instead of just carrying one around yourself is really annoying.

I do like the Burners in this game, but the problem is they all almost seem the same, making it very repetitive shooting them over and over, plus since there are only a few voices done for the hundreds of these guys.

There are two other things that bothered me, but wasn't that much of an issue. One of which is the rescue missions in the burning apartments, you have to use a thermal mask, making it look very disorienting, plus you can take it off without it being fatal so it can be a pain. The Havok engine is great, I just wish you can blow arms and legs off as well, would be kinda fun, but I guess it might be a good thing, since it would give the game a Soldier of Fortune feel.

The Bottom Line
All in all, this is a great game, The Burners are a blast to kill and the storyline is very well done, it almost gives it a Robocop feel, just without the metal half-robot, half-man running around. If you love first-person shooters and love a lot of gun violence this game is for you. But if your an anti-gun advocate, then keep on walking, this game will make you cringe when you pump some buckshot in the chest of a Burner. I just hope that make a sequel soon, just with a different variety of gangs this time. Still though, a very great game through and through.