State of Emergency is a beat 'em up at its core, much like classic favorites like 'Streets of Rage' and 'Final Fight'.  However, this time around, instead of simply battling through a level, fighting a boss, and repeating till you reach the end, SoE has you rage through four medium-sized sections of the city, warding off the Corporation, and their soldiers.  The net result of this is that there is no real structure to the game play progression, and what proceeds is a highly monotonous romp, despite two radically different game modes.

 

The weakest part of the game comes in the form of the incredibly ill conceived Revolution mode, consisting of a large number of missions that must be completed in order to progress to the next area of game play.  Why is this so bad?  Well, sadly, nearly all of the missions consist of excruciatingly simple 'seek and destroy', 'escort', and 'fetch the thing' gameplay.  There are 175 missions in Revolution mode, which means there are MANY redundant missions for four measly stages.  You end up spending several hours running around the same block doing the same three simple things over and over again.  If completing these stages weren't the only way to unlock hidden characters, there would be no reason to attempt them at all.  Then again, since each character functions identically, the incentive isn't great to begin with.

 

Chaos mode is the better half of the game, sending you into an arcade style free-for-all with plenty of weapons at your disposal.  A timer counts down as you plow your way through several randomly activated objectives, and you gain extra time by defeating your enemies.  While great for 30 minutes or so, Chaos mode will become stale once your inner anarchist becomes bored.

 

The graphics are quite a technical achievement.  The game has the ability to produce roughly 200 characters on screen at one time without slowdown, greatly adding to the frantic nature.

 

Pretty pictures and boring modes aside, the real downfall of the game is the unusually shallow gameplay.  Each of the identical characters have punches, grabs, and kicks that look different, but do exactly the same thing.  Combos consist of punching either one of the buttons four times in a row to throw... four punches or four kicks.  Melee weapons only serve to provide quicker knockouts, and firearms make you pretty much unstoppable.  And there's some spin thing that knocks down the enemies around you.

 

That's all there is.  After five minutes of punching and kicking, you'll have done all you will ever do in State of Emergency.  Once you pick up a baton or an AK47, you won't really be surprised by what other weapons can do.  Granted all beat 'em ups suffer from these same problems, but SoE lacks strategy, character specific advantages, and even a single boss battle to round out the experience.

 

The controls are actually done very well, a step above other games in this genre, but the camera seems to do its best to move away from the enemy you're facing.  You can reposition it, but everything going on around you is so confusing and frantic that it won't stay in that position for long.

 

In conclusion, State of Emergency is a letdown.  In a fictional world where riots rage on, you'll notice on your mission-based treks that the rioters around you aren't actually doing anything but running around, sometimes with a VCR.  Why don't they turn over a car, or fight amongst themselves?  What is this?  State of Emergency is too caught up in its visuals to provide a coherent reason behind anything that ever occurs within its confines.

 

-James Napier