The game hopes to revitalize the Beat'em up genre and bring it to the modern era by adding some
multiplayer elements and an in depth fighting controls or a fighting game.
Urban Reign follows the deeds of Brad Hawk who is hired by Shung Ying Lee as she wage a gang war with the numerous street gangs of Green Harbor, a heavily secured city in the U.S. Things aren't as simple in street gang wars however as families clash and allies become enemies and rivals becomes friends.
The story of Urban Reign was interesting but sadly is weighted
down by its fight heavy gameplay. What little interest you got for the
characters and the crisis Brad faces turns boring and repetitive when the story
just flings you into one brawl after another. The game gives you too much of
the fighting to barely care for whats happening in the story aside from you
must beat up the next bunch of bad guys in the next chapter. It's way too long
and got boring real fast without any real sense of progression aside from
leveling up your character stats.
The story is about 100 chapters long with each their own mix
of crazy enemies to fight. By the time you hit chapter 30+ you probably too
numb to read the text at the beginning of the fight to care about the story and
just want to beat the living daylights of the enemy you're going to face in the
next area and get the story over with. The plot twist was very predictable
towards halfway of the story. And to add insult to injury the final boss in the story
mode is the most easiest enemy to fight in the game.
The game takes 3 hours to finish. That is if you're lucky
since this game will call you names and will beat you to a fertilizer more
times than you can count. The enemies in this game comes in two varieties, the Punching
bags and Combo freaks. They are either too dumb or too hard you frequently have
to stop yourself from throwing the controller in rage. There is no in between. This
is probably the Beat'em
up equivalent of Dark Souls...get good or get
wreck.
Graphics
wise the game is beautifully made and the gameplay control mechanics is solid
as objects like walls, crates, furniture and even pinball machines breaks up as
you kick and punch or throw your enemies on them. You can run up walls and
execute dive attacks. The ability to damage certain body parts for damage
bonuses and the ability to counter attacks and execute super moves via energy
bar that fills up the more you fight is great but the only few saving grace of
this game.
The
game multiplayer is nice and the game looks awesome in the hands of an expert
player but the learning curve is way too high and the story is predictable and
too long to be interesting. The enemies are unbalanced that one wrong button
press will cost you a good chunk of HP as even earlier enemies can chain combo
you to about an inch of your characters life. It's certainly not for everyone
except for those who likes a challenge.
Just
check how well the game looks when played by experts.
The music is decent as it has the right amount of techno rock to compliment the fighting scenes but after the story mode for a good dozen or so chapters the sound sort of got repetitive and boring fast. The team attacks are great to pull off as well and varies depending on which partner you have. The addition of Marshall law and Paul Phoenix as secret characters is nice specially if you are a Tekken fan.
Comparing this to Beat Down: Fists of vengeance this game has definitely a winner in the gameplay and controls category. It does loses on its unfair AI and a lack of depth in its RPG elements specially in terms of having a deep story as Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance has a more engaging plot and a well paced exploration Beat'em up RPG elements. I guess it boils down on what aspect you are much interested on.
Sadly for an RPG Beat'em up game it lacks a lot of the RPG elements outside of leveling up your characters. There's no city to explore or side quest to be done. Your enemies attack bar fills faster than you and can execute moves, team attacks and chain combo you off walls if you even so much as blink. The game is decent if you want to spend some time alone or with your friend beating up enemies on a rainy day. There are definitely better games out.
With its bland story and a steep difficulty level Urban Reign is a hard recommendation. The graphics is beautiful and the gemeplay is solid than most games of this genre. Sadly the payoff of finishing the story isn't worth the 100 chapters players have to go through. The game is decent if you have the time and patience to get pass the steep difficulty it has. But if you are into Beat'em up and fighting games I'd recommend giving this a try at least.
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