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State of Emergency IGN Review

Franky

Ludwig van
...in der PS2 US NG hat es ein 'IGN-Insider' netterwerweise gepostet:

TEIL1:

State of Emergency

Rockstar's newest game is a pure riot; a wildly sensational but ultimately
shallow beat-'em-up that'll have your parents screaming.



February 15, 2002 - There's this old saying Grace Slick once said about rock
'n roll, and it goes something like this --"Rock 'n Roll should make your
parents' skin crawl, make them want to wretch. That's what it's all about."
I can see very clearly that the fun-loving, envelope-pushing creators at
Rockstar had exactly this in mind when they brainstormed their new
beat-'em-up, State of Emergency. The crossover between rock 'n roll and
videogames shouldn't strike too many folks as weird or odd, because game
makers have been pushing to break old molds for years. Now, with new,
powerful systems that enable designers to do more, to explore, push, and
expand game genres, the ideas behind games are beginning to flourish.
Rockstar, fresh off its stunning hit Grand Theft Auto III, knows this more
than most.
But don't make the mistake that State of Emergency is anything like GTA3.
It's not. It's not the same developer, not the same engine, not the broad,
sweeping tour-de-force that GTA3 is. SOE on its very own, however, is a
marvel of technical prowess -- with more than 250 characters on screen at
once -- and it's certainly a concept that's never been pushed to this
extent.

Gameplay
What began as an idea more than three years ago has finally come to
fruition. It's the beat-'em-up that ate Tokyo; huge, violent, and wildly
entertaining. State of Emergency should stun your parents and make you an
instant addict. The concept is simple, but it's so accessible and easy to
play that it almost seems dangerous. Like, why on earth is this so easy and
fun to play? Well, hey! It's a game, it's supposed to be fun (dummy). And
this certainly is.

But let's also be clear about something else: State of Emergency is
certainly going to ruffle some conservative feathers. Oh yes. It's got an M
rating for a reason. You take on the role of an angry, pent-up civilian, joi
n a freedom movement, and then smash everything you see into bits, killing
anyone who gets in the way, too. The goal of course is to stop the
oppressive regime from taking away your God-given rights, and so you mean to
aim the violence at the bad guys, but it just so happens that if you're not
aiming the mini-gun or the flamethrower in the right direction, a handful of
innocent victims are mistakenly killed. You are penalized for that, too (Bad
gamer, bad!), because the goal of the game is not to kill civilians.

SOE takes a classic videogame genre, the beat-'em-up, once dominant in the
arcades with Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and Double Dragon, and has
stretched, widened, and infused it with a modern theme and more than 250
characters in screen at once. In short, it's a riot game. You riot. Yo
u
break windows, blow up cars, shoot people, and break as much as possible,
and it's an enormous release, a smashing good time, and hell-bent, non-stop
action.

Split into two parts, Revolution and Chaos, State of Emergency enables
gamers to vent frustrations, challenge friends for high scores, and presents
itself as a great party game for two or more people. It's not a two-player
game, but it becomes a social glue of sorts that's hard to resist. You sit
around, pass the controller, and have fun. Remember, this is a game.

Revolution follows a story, and places you in missions -- as many as 185
missions, starting out in the Capitol City Mall. As you progress, new
locales open, including Chinatown, Eastside, and Corporation Central. You
meet new people and they offer new objectives, ranging from straight
attacks, chase and attack missions, to defend, escort and defend, and a few
more. Players get to select two characters to begin, either MacNeil or
Libra. As you progress, becoming skilled, you open up new characters,
including Spanky, Bull, and Freak.

Revolution is fun, but only for a while. It's designed to provide gamers
with a huge amount of missions, and it does indeed offer a lot of playtime.
The thing is that the missions eventually become repetitive and brainless.
It's not like I would buy State of Emergency to stimulate the most
intellectual neurons in my brain, but hey, after 50 defend, escort, and
chase missions, I'm not only a little numbed with repetition, but I'm
anxiously hoping the story, or something else, will entice me to continue.

The weapon list is quite extensive, including a sword, pistol, Uzi, AK 47
Kalashnikov, shotgun, M16 Assault Rifle, mini-Gun, grenade launcher, rocket
launcher, tear gas launcher, flame-thrower, grenades, Molotov Cocktails,
tazer, pepper spray, and street "furniture." The furniture set is relatively
vast and mostly consists of junk (but very, very useful junk!) such as
crates, garbage cans, benches, etc., Furniture also includes, I guess, the
heads of dead people. Yes, if you slice somebody with a sword, you can pick
up his or her head and smash someone else with it. Though not subtle, it's
still a nice detail that is consistent with the game's philosophy. In
Revolution, you start with small weapons and as you progress larger ones
become available, but only until later are a wide variety of weapons around.

Even though Chaos mode isn't terribly deep either, it's the very core of the
game. It's where I could literally sit and play from morning 'til dawn. Set
up into three initial parts, Chaos gives players un-timed free range play, a
three-minute clock, and a five-minute clock. The main goal is to score as
many points as possible, and the hyper-happy narrator provides sub-goals for
you to hit certain areas at a specific time. For instance, he'll say, "blow
up cars for extra points," or "smash windows for multipliers." By performing
these acts at the required time, you will indeed earn as many as 5X
multipliers. Some goals are warnings, i
ncluding penalties for killing
civilians, points that are deducted from your total score.

The brilliant idea in Chaos, which I mentioned earlier, is in my mind the
raison d'etre is to reign terror in the midst of a full and complete riot.
Weapons can be picked up around in various locations (the regenerate
randomly as different weapons afterward), and you can simply go to town,
smashing and killing as much as you can within a certain time. The idea
being to score as high as possible. When you score 500,000 and open the next
locale, or when you see those multiplier scores spinning, the surge of
adrenaline is unmistakably fine. There is also Last Clone Standing, another
mode, which is exactly what it sounds like, and it's also very worthy of
your time. That mode opens up after you've succeeded in scoring big points.

But ultimately, the single carrot in State of Emergency is the desire to
smash things. And then smash them again. SOE succeeds wildly in its narrow,
focused goal, but don't expect to find the depth of Grand Theft Auto III in
it. You won't find it. This game is about arcade-action -- fast, violent,
large-scale arcade-action.

Graphics
Using a propriety core engine and renderer custom build around the
PlayStation 2's innards, State of Emergency is a technical feat that other
Koei has come close to with Dynasty Warriors and Kessen series. But even in
those cases, the characters weren't on screen all the time, like in State of
Emergency. Here, players have the opportunity to feel like they are truly
part of a huge, frenetic riot, and the feeling is truly intense. The 250
characters, comprising what seems like to be about a dozen different body
types, all follow different AI paths, and they all react to the actions
occurring around them in realtime. It's pretty amazing to see more than a
dozen characters react in fear, ducking, crouching, shivering, and/or
screaming while you shoot off a rocket into a nearby building. Heck, it's
damn impressive.

Visually, the game takes on a rather humorous appearance, and it looks like
the artists a comic book look for at least two reasons: One, because of the
subject matter itself, and two, because of the inordinate level of activity
happening all at once. Buildings, vehicles, storefronts, fire hydrants,
water fountains, and other things are built well, but textured simply, with
minimal lines and design. Characters are caricatures, falling into
categories, those with giant bellies, stocky legs, and ruddy faces; others
with medium-sized builds; and the skinny variety, you know, super-thin,
gawky, long-legged and strangely still big-footed.

Ultimately, State of Emergency won't blow you away with its graphic textures
or amazingly imaginatively drawn cities. Rather, it's meant to show off a
comic nature, a goofy caricature of the real world. There should be no
mistaking that. And for what it is, the graphics do their thing. I should
mention that the sheer volume of characters is really quite astounding,
making for a wide variety of characters, and
some very likeable ones, too.
It only takes about 10 seconds to see Spanky run to know what I mean, and to
know which character you're really going to latch on to.

.....
 
TEIL 2:


Sound
Ahhh, the sounds of State of Emergency. Well, to be honest, there is a lot
of sound, and it's the sound of hundreds of people running around like
chickens with their heads cut off in a full-fledged riot. People scream,
chortle and die when shot; they holler, gag, grunt, and yell, and all of
these sounds fulfill a necessary function, and they all work. The sounds of
the flame-thrower and the shotgun are wonderfully satisfying in the right
context, and the sound of a giant tanker or Hummer exploding in full is also
quite a thrill. These things are done well.

As for the music, well once again, this is not Grand Theft Auto III. The
music, oddly enough, is more of a background flavor, a white noise that
keeps the tension high and the blood flowing. There is nothing drastically
noticeable about it, in fact. There's this sort beat that keeps tings lively
in the background, and it comes in decent techno-rock blends.



Closing Comments
I know I have said this at least twice, but it should be said
again, State of Emergency is a tried and true beat-'em-up, and it doesn't
offer the stunning replay value of depth of Rockstar's flagship title, Grand
Theft Auto III. It's very different. In fact, it's sort of like taking one
aspect of GTA3, say a gang fight, and blowing it out to a huge proportion.
Like 200 times as big. It's intense, wild and even a little shocking, and
that's coming from a weathered gamer who's played hundreds of games with
rarely the blink of an eye. State of Emergency is a calamity in its own way.
But that shouldn't deter you from buying it. Because it is damn
good beat-'em-up, and it thrills, shocks, addicts, and stuns all in one
intense flavor. It's just a million times bigger than any other beat-'em-up
out there. And while I didn't care much for the Revolution mode, the Chaos
mode alone is absolutely worth the price of admission. The addiction level
in this game is extremely high.

So yeah, get this one. It's fun as hell for a while, and you may
put in down after only an hour. But it's the kind of game that you put down,
and three days later, its sheer accessibility makes it instantly fresh
again. State of Emergency is especially good fun for a group of people, just
trading the controller around, competing to get the highest score. Just make
sure to keep it away from any super conservative, paranoid, reactionary PTA
moms, and far from the kids. People always take things out of context, and
let's face it, this is a videogame, it's meant to be fun.

-- Douglass C. Perry


Presentation
Very simple layout and menu design. Very few things to
misinterpret. Great opening movie, and in-menu films, too. 7.0
Graphics
Goofy character design and comical overall art design lighten
the content load. Simple textures on environments, better ones on
characters. Still, all that wit
h 250 characters in screen at once. Wow.
7.5
Sound
This is not Simon and Garfunkle's Sounds of Silence, this is the
sound of chaos, panic and anarchy. Musically, this game could have done much
better.
7.0

Gameplay
The shocking intensity of the game is amazing all on its own.
Revolution mode is not nearly as fun as Chaos, which is undeniably rocking.

9.3

Lasting Appeal
Revolution mode is long, but suffers from redundancy. Chaos is
over in three to five minutes, but with a friend or two, it could last
forever. But this game screams for a sorely missing 2-player mode.
9.0

OVERALL SCORE (not an average) 8.3
 
Klingt doch alles recht nett!

Scheint irgendwie genau mein (unser) Spiel zu sein!
*Aufjedenfallhabenmuss...
 
kommt mir jetzt ja nicht wieder mit euren sprüchen wie "wegen leuten wie dir gibt es die BpJs." uswusw, aber ich hoffe, dass die Europäische version uncut ist, denn bei dem game kommt es ja nun wirklich auf das metzeln drauf an, oder?? besonders der mit den köpfen gefällt mir (remember, it's just a game) :D
weiss jemand etwas über eine evtl Eu-Version (ob cut und wenn ja wieviel, oder uncut, natürlich).

GRz


Duke
 
Klingt wirklich sehr vielversprechend. Kommt auf jeden Fall auf meine check it out Liste. Auf eine uncut-Fassung hoffe ich natürlich auch.
 
Die eindrücke in den diversen englischen Foren sind nicht so euphorisch, wie bei den meisten anderen PS2-Spielen... Es soll ziemlich schnell langweilig werden!
 
Original geschrieben von NMandl
Die eindrücke in den diversen englischen Foren sind nicht so euphorisch, wie bei den meisten anderen PS2-Spielen... Es soll ziemlich schnell langweilig werden!

Das wird Crazy Taxi auch, ist halt der Fluch eines arcade Games.
 
Das wird Crazy Taxi auch, ist halt der Fluch eines arcade Games.

ja, und der Vorteil des Arcade Games ist, dass man es immer wieder in die Konsole legt und ein stündchen spielt! sofern es nicht sehr mies ist, was State of Emergency wohl kaum ist!!
 
hab zur Sicherheit bei Amazon.uk vorbestellt. Die UK-Versionen zur eher nicht zensiert.
 
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