State of Emergency

The Good
The concept is gold - all hell is breaking loose. It is the not-too-distant future, in a city controlled on all fronts by a mega-corporation. Government has become obsolete, and the population is 'happy' - actually, they're miserable, but they don't realize it because they've been fed lies and lifestyles for the last 50 years or more.

Increasing dissatisfaction in "freedoms" provided by the company, known simply as The Corporation, results in small, easily defeated pockets of resistance... until a State of Emergency is called in Capitol City, and the rioting begins... and this is where you story begins.

The Bad
As far as simple arcade action goes, this game is great - or would be, if the year was 1995... back then, it would have been a best seller, but today's audiences expect more from even the most basic beat-em-up game. Case in point: Grand Theft Auto III, which I can scarcely believe was made by the same company.

The games controls are frustrating and clumsy. The AI is poor... enemies respawn within moments of being killed, at exactly the same spot, but mostly, you're surrounded by civilians. Very difficult to navigate through missions due to terrible mapping. There is absolutely NO character development at all - you don't care about any of the characters. The music, while good, is repetitive to the point of insanity. If you drop a weapon, it disappears almost immediately.

The Bottom Line
This could have been an absolutely fantastic game. I bought it based entirely on my faith in Rock Star Games alone, but after playing this game, I am sorely disappointed. It's a mildly entertaining game... rent it for the weekend and give it a spin, you may like it, but I somehow doubt this one will be spending a great deal of time in my PS2... instead, it'll probably be on the shelf, collecting dust.

Simply put, this game does not take advantage of the capabilities of the PS2 - it strikes me as a project that was rushed through every stage of development, slapped in a box, and shipped without any real consideration for whether or not or was actually a DECENT game.