Urban Reign

GameCore is CBSNews.com's gaming column written by William Vitka and Chad Chamberlain. This column was written by Alejandro K. Brown.

Within the first few missions of playing Urban Reign, you might think, "this game is cheating."

Not to say that Urban Reign is bad or unworthy of a purchase. It is simply geared towards a specific gamer: the advanced and hardcore fighter/brawler/action gamer. All else need not apply.

Urban Reign from Namco (of the Tekken franchise) is a third-person brawler for the PlayStation 2. Initially you take command as a "hired fist" whose job is to beat the stuffing out of just about everyone who crosses your path, literally.

Each mission is within an enclosed arena (a bar, a back alley with no exits, etc.) where you must satisfy objectives before moving on. These objectives are usually to knock everyone in the area out of it, knock out a specific target, or achieve a knockout within a set timeframe. Once cleared, your next mission is to do the same thing in a different arena to a different set of opponents.

Yes, multiple opponents. Certain missions will have up to five different opponents attacking your character, and it is up to your fighting skills to fend them off and take them down. In addition to the standard dodge, attack, grapple and run commands, you can direct the damage to specific regions of your enemies' body. So, pressing UP and the grapple button will produce a headlock, while DOWN and the grapple button will produce a leg-locking takedown.

There are also situations where a single button command will take down several enemies that are surrounding your character; it's a pretty slick idea that works well in combat and looks great when pulled off. Over time, your fighter will unlock new moves that can be chained into each other with relative ease, with just a few simple commands. It's great to see a several hit combo open into a grappling takedown with just a few simple button presses. The fighting system is simple yet refined and can be incredibly offensive in a skilled player's hands.

Along with the basic attack and grapple command is the dodge command. Don't pass this command off as unnecessary. After the fifth mission, you will get beat up often without using it. You will need to use this command... heavily. Continually tapping this button will evade most attacks, even when surrounded by three or four enemies simultaneously attacking you.

If you are fast enough, pressing a directional button while dodging an attack opens the enemy up for a counterattack. The animations are great and you get a sense that the team did their best to make different dodging scenarios look cool — which is great, because you will be dodging a whole lot during this game.

While your character can attack and dodge in any direction at any time, the enemies know precisely when you are attacking and dodging and will exploit that knowledge to attack you. Case in point: my character was surrounded by three enemies attacking at once. I continually hit the dodge button for five seconds while they attacked, at which point they stopped attacking. I continued to hit the button for three more seconds: still no enemy attack from any of the three opponents. The millisecond I stopped pressing the dodge button to hit the attack button, ALL three attacked me to a point where I could not retaliate.

The artificial intelligence (A.I.) is supposed to be smart, but not take advantage of the fact that the user cannot press the buttons as quickly as the A.I. can react. This is a large portion of the game. The A.I. consistently knows when you are going to attack and beats you to the attack itself. Its range for enemy attacks are usually longer than your reach, and many times, it launches several attacks faster than you can react to them.

Some may be saying "he's not a real gamer" or "maybe he's lost his fighter's edge" or "your timing just stinks." I thought so too... well, not really. But I decided to let a friend (who watches video feeds of Tekken combos to gain a better understanding of the game in his spare time) play the game and give me his thoughts on the timing of the fighting system. He concurred; the A.I. not only reacts faster than the player in many occasions, but will ramp up its difficulty in the middle of a fight.

An enemy that is slow and sluggish at the beginning of a mission with three other enemies available will be an unstoppable "Combo Machine" if he is the last enemy left standing.

That is the A.I. cheating, my friend.

If the enemy starts off incredibly strong and stays strong, then ok: you knew the fight was going to be hard from the get-go, and you expect to get knocked out a lot. When the game has to intentionally make itself harder in the middle of a fight, you know that you are in for an unfair fight. Now, factor in the additional opponents doing the same thing during a mission brawl and you can start to see the how the frustration level of a gamer may start to increase.

To be fair, just about each and every move can be countered with fast reflexes, quick timing, and knowing where the enemy has attacked you. But once again, the A.I. will punish you if you are simply not fast enough. Even my Tekken-savvy friend had his frustration level raised quite high during a mission, which "teaches" you how to break grappling locks. That particular stage only had one enemy, but if your timing was not fast enough, he would perform up to four continuous attacks on your character if you missed countering the first or second attack. At that point, you actually have to wait for the A.I. to finish beating on you.

That kind of cheap attack system is not my idea of fun. Later in the game, you will have a partner that will help you distribute the smack down to your opponents. This only increases the A.I. difficulty, which just about brings you right back to square one.

With that out of the way, the rest of Urban Reign is pretty good. The fighting mechanics are very solid. When playing in practice mode with all your moves unlocked, you can create some incredible combos and keep them going for a while.

The system itself is very easy to get into; it then starts to deepen when you can inflict localized damage to different regions of the body, which will cause different problems for different enemies. The multi-player component is pretty cool, and is a lot of fun for four people wanting to get their "brawl" on.

There are several fighting styles from which to choose. Will the arm power of the boxing style beat the strong kicks of the karate style, or will the grappling prowess of the wrestling style overtake them all? These and other fighting styles make the multitude of unlocked fighters stand out from the "generic fighter" mold.

The graphics look great on the PlayStation 2 and the controls are very tight. However, they need to be tight for the quick reflexes that this game demands of the player.

The story is pretty generic: the gang that you've been hired by wants you to take out all the other gangs with your fists. The vocal work is great and actually made me want to listen to the mission setups and in-game dialog. Otherwise, you can pretty much skip the mission briefing and just get to the brawling. Overall, the presentation of Urban Reign is done very well, as is expected from Namco.

I know gamers who thrive on this breakneck system of dodging, parrying, and countering attacks; so for them, Urban Reign for the PlayStation 2 is a great purchase. If that isn't your speed, then add another $25 ahead of time to your purchase price — that's for the new PlayStation 2 controller you will need to buy as a replacement for the one you will break in frustration while playing this game.

Thanks to Mcconnell L. for lending his Tekken expertise for this review.

Urban Reign for the PlayStation 2 is rated "T" for Teen.

By Alejandro K. Brown