Namco, what is the deal? First you brought us Death By Degrees starring Nina Williams from Tekken and now Urban Reign. And while you have shown us that you can do a good fighter (Soul Caliber for example.), this definitely is not one of them. Solidly in the lineage running back to the beat ‘em up Double Dragon, if Urban Reign is where this genre line is going, we’re definitely looking at an evolutionary dead end.

Like those that came before it in the beat-‘em’up line, Urban Reign gives the player just enough story to send them out to pound on a bunch of thugs. Unlike its progenitor Double Dragon’s rescue mission, Urban Reign is a little less noble. You are Brad Hawk, brawler for hire. You have been hired by Shun Ying Lee, low-cut-dress-wearing leader of the Chinatown gang, as muscle in her battles with the Zaps, a rival gang, and other street punks. No really noble rescue stuff here. It is all about power, control and money on the streets of the city of Green Harbor.

The main story mode of the game plays out over a series of 100 missions. That initially sounds like a lot, but what must be kept in mind is that many of the missions play out in just a minute or two. And even over that short time, the missions get tiresome and repetitive quickly. It is mostly just a take on a few average bad guys or perhaps one or two tough bad guys at a time in a street, alley, parking lot, etc. scenario and then beat them into submission. The problem is there is nothing else. Do you get to explore the streets of Green Harbor as you move between mission battles? No, you just go to a map/mission briefing and then magically appear at the site of the next fight. There are not even enough cutscenes to keep you interested in the story. There is adequate story development at the beginning of the game, but it is apparent the development team got as bored with the schlocky narrative as the player surely will and just mercifully let it go by the wayside as much as possible.

The fighting system, which is the foundation of this type of game, is adequate. The player is given grapple, strike, run and dodge buttons with which to battle enemies. The combo system is passable and control is responsive. As long as the player is fighting well and avoiding getting hit, things work out pretty well. The problem comes when you’re in a crowd of enemies and one of your opponents finally lands a solid attack on you – and this happens all too often since the AI of the opposing fighters is quite good. Your character’s resulting daze after a successful enemy attack leaves him vulnerable to being beaten like a piñata at a kid’s birthday party as his body is, it seems, endlessly juggled between opponents and an inordinate amount of damage is taken. There just seems to be no way to end the abuse with a combo breaker or roll-out move. If this happens even once, quite often you have to accept that the mission is lost and you’ll have to retry it ... again and again and again. This not only makes the game last longer than it would if the game fought fair, but it also can induce almost controller-throwing frustration. (I have a very high frustration threshold before I start destroying my beloved game equipment. Your results may vary.)

If there is a bright spot in Urban Reign, it is the presentation elements of the game. It looks damned fine for a PlayStation 2 game. The characters are nicely detailed and animation is fluid with a good framerate. Fighting arena environments look good and have many destructable elements and things that can be turned to the player’s advantage during a fight. The smack of fist on flesh and the crunch of bone also come through in the sound effects, while the soundtrack provides a nice accompaniment to the combat. The camera is erratic, but can be tolerated.

In addition to the story mode, there is a free play mode that allows the player to replay the story-mode missions with any of the unlockable characters in the game. (Speaking of which, Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law of Tekken fame make guest appearances. Poor guys. Must have been in their contracts that they had to do it.) There are also multiplayer modes where up to four players can battle. What did strike me as odd was the fact that in the story mode the player often had a partner he could issue orders to and even control, but there was no cooperative story mode so two players could play the story together. That would probably not only have been a lot of fun, but also might have lessened the frustration factor. Yet another significant missed opportunity for this flawed game. There is also no online play support.

Aside from its superior presentation, about the only really good thing that can be said for Urban Reign is that it is not available to offend on more than one console. That’s right PS2 owners, you can be proud you took the bullet for all gamerdom. While Urban Reign looks and sounds good, that pretty facade hides a repetitive, uninteresting and frustrating game that just can’t seem to deliver where it counts: gameplay. Sorry, Namco. Better luck with Soul Caliber III.