Following the amazing GTA3, Rockstar churns out the first disappointment of 2002.
Wasted potential. Those two words sum up State of Emergency pretty nicely. In all the previews, it had the makings of a great game. Varied missions, large, screen-filling crowds that reacted to and interacted with the environment and the actions of your characters, and a wealth of techniques which would fill out a deep fighting engine. Indeed, comparisons to the almighty Grand Theft Auto 3 were being made simply because both games promoted similar, law-breaking themes and they were both being published by Rockstar. Were these comparisons fair? Not really, the games do share similar themes, but the range between their respective levels of depth and quality could not be bigger. People were expecting another GTA3, but State of Emergency falls flat in almost every aspect. However, this review isn't about GTA3, it's about SoE, but even based on its own merits, there's still a lot of work to be done.
The game features two core modes, Chaos and Revolution. Chaos is further split up into several sub-modes all featuring similar gameplay. That is, to say, that you pick one of six different characters (only three at the beginning of the game, the others can be unlocked by meeting certain goals) and then launch them on an all-out assault against one of four Corporation (the anonymous industry that's taken control of your city, thus causing the riots in the first place) locales, ranging from the mall to the Corp's main headquarters. Like the characters, only the mall is available from the start and the other three have to be unlocked by gaining enough points as you kill enemies and destroy property. Unfortunately, none of the environments are nearly as interactive as they say (some things can be picked up and thrown, but you can't even go in any buildings/stores). Not to mention the fact that each level is fairly small and they all look more or less the same. I was able to tally up enough points to unlock all the levels in Chaos mode in about 30 minutes. Score multipliers and penalties show up from time to time during this mode, but a good deal of the time, it's the one that doesn't allow you to kill civilians, which makes the game an incredibly frustrating experience. Other than that, it pretty much consists of causing a certain amount of havoc before time runs out.
One would think that if Chaos mode is that simple, that the Revolution mode would be much more comprehensive. Unfortunately, Chaos mode actually IS more fun. Revolution essentially has your character going through the same four areas as the other modes, except this time he/she has to complete missions, around 170 of them. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if these missions were sufficiently different, but almost every one of them consists of protecting an individual, grabbing an item, or killing a certain target.
Even though neither mode is really all that fun after the first five minutes, one might hope that the fighting engine was any good. This is beat-em-up after all. The advertisements for State of Emergency boast that the game features a deep fighting engine with a range of different moves, but much like every other aspect of the game, this is a gross exaggeration of the actual product. Each character has the same set of moves, albeit with different animations, and these techniques consist of a basic hit, two or three simple combos (i.e. punch, punch, kick), and a throw. You can also pick up some of the objects found in the environment, like benches and trash cans, but all of them work in the same manner and there is no noticeable difference between their effects on the enemies, who also happen to have little AI, and like to simply swarm you en masse. The weaponry is the only thing that happens to save the combat as it IS quite fun taking a flamethrower or a rocket launcher and unloading on the Corporation's minions. However, the clips run out too fast and before you know it, you're scrambling to find another weapon before you get beat down. Aiming is a mess, and although it helps that you can lock onto enemies, it doesn't work quite so well in practice.
Oh, and the crowds. They're supposed to be one of the main draws of the game. They're supposed to react to your every move and they're supposed to appear to actually be rioting. You're supposed to be able to incite them to massive acts of violence. Well, you can't. While having 200 people on screen at a time is a great technical feat, the people never seem to do anything more than run around aimlessly. Some carry loot, but not one uses it. They're simply frolicking around with stuff in their hands. The crowd actually gets in the way most of the time while you're trying to attack incoming Corporation troops.
OK, so the music is fairly generic, the combat is weak, the gameplay is really no fun, the crowds are an annoyance, and the missions are repetitive and frustrating. Is there anything redeemable about State of Emergency? Certainly some will like it for its wanton violence (and even then, it's not THAT gory due to its cartoon stylings). Beat-em-up fans might also like it due the fact that genre has been waning is recent years, and despite its problems, it's more satisfying than a lot of the tripe that's been coming out.
Simply put, the game has little merit beyond the technical feat of cramming ~200 running amok on screen at one time.
