Urban Chaos: Riot Response

The name Urban Chaos sure brings back fond memories. Mucky Foot’s free roaming action game (long before Grand Theft Auto ruled the genre) kicked some serious ass, but due to lackluster sales was deemed a commercial failure. It just so happens, Eidos were the publishers of that game too, so when I heard they were bringing back a game called Urban Chaos: Riot Response (UC:RR), I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, Riot Response is no sequel (spiritual or other) to the game, but it still manages to breathe some fresh air into the over-used FPS genre.

In Riot Response, players will step into the boots of Nick Mason, a T-Zero operative, who’s returned to his hometown to find it overrun by the Burners, a gang of psychos who appeared from nowhere to destroy the city. Your goal in the game is to bring order to the streets and clean up all the filth by using any means necessary. Brutally entertaining violence and loads of riot shield bashing ensue…

Unlike Urban Chaos (1999), Riot Response is a first person shooter and thanks to some extremely user-friendly controls, plays like one perfectly. You’ll start off with a pistol and a riot shield initially, but later on you’ll get to wield some impressive firepower like the sawed-off shotgun, pump action shotgun, dual Uzis and melee weapons like a stun-gun (which is the only way to arrest some one without killing them), machetes, chainsaws and more. The weapons in this game may not be as detailed as those of Black, but they pack a mean punch (and by mean I mean bloody and chunky). A well timed headshot from the shotgun will result in a beautiful (slow mo) explosion of blood and brain-matter as a result of which you may find yourself sticking to that gun through most of the game (I know I did).

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You’ll start off nearly every mission by yourself, but in no time you’ll get some sort of backup in the form of medics, firefighters and police officers. Ensuring their safety through out the level is a must or you’ll be staring at the “Restart Level” screen… a lot. While this sort of baby-sitting may sound annoying, these guys do end up helping you out a lot. The medic will hook you up with (a limited amount of) painkillers to ease your pain, while the firefighter can extinguish fires (duh!), break down doors and clear up obstacles blocking your way. The cops on the other hand will replenish your ammo when you’re running low and offer backup (a limited amount) while engaging enemies. Controlling your team isn’t as complicated as you may think—as and when you need their help—a context sensitive menu appears and all you have to do is select the appropriate symbol and you’re good to go.

An appealing aspect of Riot Response is its mission variety. There are some shoot-everything-that-wears-a-mask missions (since all the Burners wear one), but at the same time you’ll have to rescue some poor sod from a burning building or rescue a hostage from the clutches of a Burner gang leader or blast everything behind a turret mounted on a chopper. While hostage-rescue missions are interesting and refreshing at first, it becomes a bit repetitive after the 100th hostage situation because it all boils down to using the same tactic; block enemy fire with your riot-shield and pump him full of lead when he reloads his weapons. The only tricky part in a hostage-rescue mission is that you have to maintain a sufficient distance or the hostage taker will splatter the hostage’s grey-matter all over the place, and you guessed it, its mission over for you. Rescuing people from a burning building can be tricky as well, as many doors when opened can cause a backdraft, which we all know isn’t a very pretty situation.

On the visual front, this game isn’t bad for a current generation title and the frame rate holds up well during intense firefights. I mean sure, the textures are pretty bland, and nearly every character in the game looks like they have a gazillion identical twins but these are detrimental factors strictly for the graphic whores. The game has some nifty physics, thanks to the HAVOK Physics engine, but it’s not used to its maximum potential. [Small note to developers; this isn’t 2000 (that’s the year HAVOK was launched) so don’t bother incorporating random slow motion death sequences to show off character rag dolls; instead give us a bullet time ability and allow us to choreograph our own Woo-ish fantasies>.

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In-game cutscenes are very similar to Black, with real people hamming it up like there’s no tomorrow. While Black threw a lot of Tom Clancy-ish crap our way, most of Riot Response’s cutscenes are news channel transmissions, which (thankfully) can be skipped.

Voice acting feels like it’s ripped from a cheesy 50’s action flick. While this isn’t a bad thing, the repetitive threats from the burners did get a tad boring. All I kept hearing throughout most of the game was “We’re gonna f**k you up Mason” over and over again. Ok, I feel the love here but how about threatening me in different ways? Weapons on the other hand sound authentic and convey the feeling that you are in fact wielding a firearm and not some pea shooter.

In the end, even though Riot Response isn’t the most polished game on the planet, it’s definitely worth playing once. It’s a guilty pleasure like one of those B-Grade action flicks; you know they aren’t winning any Oscars but you just can’t stop watching.