The Corporation loves each and every one of its citizens
After democracy was proven to be weak, and politics filled with corruption and purely funded for by big business, governments were abandoned, and The Corporation rose to power. It is now 2035, and an underground movement known as Freedom is trying to challenge the authority of The Corporation. Riots have broken out across the city, and a state of emergency has been declared. As one of 5 different freedom fighters, including the former chief of police and a high profile lawyer, it is up to you to put a stop to The Corporations rule, and to promote freedom.
West End riot
State of Emergency takes place in the middle of a riot. There are four major areas in the game – the Capitol City Mall, Chinatown, the East Side and Corporation Headquarters. Each area is packed with looters, thugs, police and people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Once you come to terms with the fact that absolute mayhem is going on around you, you can begin to play the game.
The Xbox version of State of Emergency includes the same two main single player modes as the Playstation 2 release, but adds some split screen multiplayer to the mix. The brunt of the single player play is found in the Revolution mode, where you must find other contacts of Freedom around the levels, and perform tasks for them. When you’ve completed enough tasks on the level, you’ll unlock the next one, and so on. The problem with the Revolution mode is that these missions are so dull – it’s either pick up this object, destroy this shop, kill this guy, or protect this guy – and the variation between these types is minimal. Missions begin to become repetitive after about the 5th task, and considering there are over 150 missions to do, you can see where this is leading.
Kaos mode is an arcade-like affair. Rather than taking on all sorts of different missions, it’s every man for himself. You are required to obtain a score to unlock the next location for a riot. During the course of the level, the announcer will yell out thing such as “Smash windows for multipliers” which will help you speed up the point earning process, while other things such as “Penalty for civilian kills” cost points. The new multiplayer mode plays similarly to the single player Kaos games, although you can also choose a sort of Deathmatch style game, where each player tries to recruit gang members scattered across the level, and fight to the death.
Sounds pretty good so far, no? Unfortunately, the problems with State of Emergency all lie within the implementation and execution of the game. The gameplay is very thin and lacking in depth – you’ll have learnt all that you need to know about the game within five minutes, and the gameplay peak will be reached in about ten minutes. It doesn’t help that everything is highly repetitive and overly simple; cutting people’s limbs off and beating them to death with it may sound fun, but wears thin after a couple of times. The AI in the game is absolutely terrible – they sit around rarely trying to damage the player, instead they just wait around for their head to be beaten in. When you combine these aspects together, State of Emergency quickly becomes an exercise in tedium, and offers nothing whatsoever in terms of compelling gameplay.
No eye-poking
State of Emergency’s visuals have been improved slightly since their appearance one year ago on the Playstation 2, with the models and environments being sharpened, and the frame rate being improved to provide for smoother play. Otherwise, everything is exactly the same as it was on the PS2 version, except that one year has passed, and it’s on a more powerful console.
Parts of State of Emergency’s visuals are impressive in a technical sense with up to 250 characters in a level and 100 or so appearing at one time at a constantly smooth frame rate. These models are rather low polygon affairs and there are only a few variations in their appearance. The game’s environments, while well designed, still retain a lot of the low quality texturing that was featured in the Playstation 2 version of the game. The camera can be problematic, though this is more of an issue in the multiplayer mode, where the camera tends to swing out of control at random.
State of Emergency’s soundtrack plays at a low volume and seems almost non existent. VIS have included custom soundtrack support, thankfully, so you can play your favourite tunes during the game, be it the Rocky IV soundtrack or Beethoven’s Symphony. The drowning out of the default soundtrack is due to the shrieks and screams of the innocents running around the levels. Weapon effects are on par, though its almost as if a generic sound has been used for all of the guns. Effects could be a lot clearer, and the game could benefit from better surround support. Voice work is non existent outside of the announcer and the news anchors reporting at the start of the level.
Make it stop
I’m sure that one or two of you have gone crazy over the final score, but I feel that after a year of time available for extra development, VIS haven’t really made anything of it. State of Emergency was a poor game to begin with – it had a good premise, but the execution was fatally flawed. In the extra year of development time, VIS could possibly have ironed out a few of these issues, and at least made a decent game out of State of Emergency. Instead, we’ve been given the same old product with a tiny amount of polish in the graphics department, and a multiplayer mode tacked on. Considering that the gameplay was worn out a year ago, it just appears to be completely dire now. To add insult to injury – State of Emergency for the Xbox was released in the USA at a budget price, but as a kick in the face to the PAL industry, we have to pay full price. Avoid.
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