Urban Chaos

Urban Chaos is a janky but impressively ambitious semi-open world adventure, living up to comparisons to 3D GTA yet predating it by a couple of years. You play as D'arci Stern, a police officer, facing a gang called the Wildcats. There's little more than this to the story, but just about everything is voice-acted which helps prop things up a bit.

The game's missions take place in several sections of an open world, each requiring completion of a main objective and optional completion of sub-objectives. Main objectives range from arresting a particular character on the map to destroying weapons caches, and sub-objectives tend to pop up during gameplay, loosely related to the context of the mission. Whilst some missions are enjoyable, many are stagnated by lack of direction and irritating puzzle/climbing/platforming sections that often bring a frustrating halt to the game's pace.

D'arci is able to perform quite a range of actions, from jumping, crawling and climbing to punching, kicking, throwing and using various weapons. This all adds a lot of variety to the gameplay--or at least, it should. The game's sluggish, poor controls meant I found it easier to instantly throw enemies to the ground and arrest them as opposed to bothering to engage in combat. Handling on-foot exploration is reasonable, rather similar to Tomb Raider; driving, on the other hand, is serviceable given the generally empty, straight streets but probably a contender for the worst on the console.

There are a handful of things to like here and Urban Chaos is by no means a bad game, but it's hampered by flaws and a lack of polish, perhaps owing to this PlayStation version being a PC port. An interesting look at early open world gaming, if little else.

I had never heard of "Urban Chaos" before but when i tried to find something neat from my friend's demo cd-rom i decided to play this so called "Urban Chaos" demo. The controls took a while to master, but when i finally managed to beat up the first bad guy (It was hard to beat him!) i finished the game. Despite of its short length and a hard ending battle i forced myself to beat the game no matter what. I found the game rather interesting so eventually i purchased the full version, which was an instant hook. It turned out to be one of my favourite PC games.

"Urban Chaos" takes place in fictional Union City, starring an African-American police officer named D'arci Stern. She is about to start her career at the Union City Police Department, but first she has to complete a couple of training simulations to master the game's controls in order to survive the rainy streets of Union City. The start is slow, the missions are basical "find-a-taxi-and-take-it-to-the-department" tasks. The city streets look wide, dirty, dark yet colourful, even a bit complex but also pretty. Everything is wet because it keeps raining all the time. The game looked very beautiful in 1999 but usually i think it isn't that bad. When the very first mission starts, the best way is to forget the mission and start searching for interesting stuff from the alleys and even from roof tops. This game forces the players to start their own individual adventures. Some of the levels can actually take hours before everything has been found because wandering around the streets is surprisingly addicting! Further the game D'arci HAS to use alleys and rooftops to find hidden ability items, new objectives and necessary paths to complete current levels. Watch out for armed bad guys and falling from rooftops or else you might die and realise you spent two hours for nothing and everything has to start from the beginning of the level! One very good thing is that D'arci can speak with different civil people and most of all they can speak all bunch of brilliant mumjumbo even though some people can also leave important information. The best thing is that the voice acting is magnifient! The actors really took a lot of effort to sound personal, threatning and also hilarious. Kudos for the Wildcat actors who sound like total badasses!

- Wildcat criminal: "Roper! Yeah you! You've got a meeting with destiny, you old man! Courtesy of the Wildcat brotherhood!"
- Roper: "I make my own destiny, scumbag... and i'm here to SHIT on you and your Wildcat brothers!"

During the story D'arci starts arresting the gang members called "Wildcats". Eventually the city gets invaded by the gang somehow and the crimes they do get very serious. Even a mysterious group called "The Fallen" get involved with the crimes. Furthermore D'arci joins her forces with a mysterious old man called Roper who is an old friend of D'arci's father. D'arci is nimble, agile and has a right to arrest. Unfortunately she is rather weak but she becomes stronger if she collects hidden Pickup Icons to earn more accuracy, reflexes, strength, damage, constibution and speed. Roper is stronger than D'arci. He can do more damage and even lift injured police officers. Unfortunately he can't sprint at all so he is a little slower than D'arci. D'arci and Roper can both search the people they arrest/kill to find either weaponry, health or mission items. During the game the dynamic duo have to complete dozens of crazy missions such as busting Wildcat commanders at a local baseball arena, searching for clues for a murder caused by an unknown suspect (My favourite level), stop bomb cars, locate hidden drug stashes, arrest the Union City mayor at his private villa and even stop missiles from reaching the Union City! The missions are so much fun and creative! The game doesn't end there when D'arci and Roper have completed their final mission. There are some bonus levels where you have a possibility to play harder training levels or play extra levels starring a street mugger called Mako! Mako is a dangerous criminal who has to annoy cops and even kill people to satisfy his boss(es). Mako moves just like D'arci and Roper except he is allowed to kill whenever he wants to and he can also sprint. These bonus levels give even more lasting appeal which is a real big plus! Or, why not using codes for more bizarre fun? Invincibility, Matrix mode, spawning cars, teleporting, getting all the guns... The list goes on and on...

"Urban Chaos" also has its flaws. The controls are quite hard at first because they remind of playing "Tomb Raider" or "Resident Evil [バイオハザード]" games due to their rather old, complex movement. Pushing up makes the character to move and an another action button to run etc. etc. Jumping is risky but fortunately the camera isn't bad. The best way to enjoy the game is to plug a proper usb controller (I use those good old Gravis Gamepad Pros) to handle the game. The keyboard is fine too but i suggest using a joypad.

The music of "Urban Chaos" is perfect. The entire soundtrack is made by Martin Oliver who managed to make mysterious, urban trip-hop mixed with ambient and experimental hip-hop elements! The music fits perfectly! I simply cannot think anything else than trip-hop that could fit the game's entirety. Besides, trip-hop used to be surprisingly popular during those years and some of game designers actually made trip-hop based videogame music. However, the music of "Urban Chaos" isn't listenable if/when D'arci is walking or running but it starts immediately right after if D'arci is sprinting, crawling, driving or fighting. The music is a bit different depending of her actions. The themes of the music are also variable depending of the level a player chooses. This way the music gives variable depth. That's not all, some of guest musicians such as "Asian Dub Foundation " and "The 3 Jays" were also involved with the soundtrack. D'arci can also go to a strip club to listen to house music played by "Infidels" (Seen it on MTV a couple of times). If she stands still for a while, she starts dancing!