State of Emergency

State of Emergency is a 2002 beat 'em up video game developed by VIS Entertainment and published by Rockstar Games for the mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 2 and mh:awesomegames:Xbox. It was later released for mh:awesomegames:Microsoft Windows by Global Star Software.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Mediocre graphics, looking more like a late Nintendo 64 game. Character models are very blocky and the textures are low quality.
 * 2) Forgettable soundtrack as it it plays the same ones over and over.
 * 3) Generic story with its "take down the organizations" plot. Even though there are multiple story arcs throughout mission briefs, they don't feel fully fleshed out and are just there to pad out the game's run time.
 * 4) Unlocking characters is pointless since they all play the same.
 * 5) There are only four levels in the entire game. There's also only two modes: Revolution (which revolves around completing various missions) and Chaos (which is all about destroying buildings and properties to score the highest point).
 * 6) * This causes the game to be relatively short, clocking in about five hours.
 * 7) Missions are very similar to each other which adds a lot of repetition. Some of them are also repeated 2 or 3 times in a single area.
 * 8) Even though the areas are pretty big, there's no map, which makes navigation a pain. All you get is an arrow that guides you around which isn't really that great for the big areas the game has.
 * 9) * This also makes it hard to spot enemies surrounding you or finding a specific target in missions (the latter of which is especially bad in East Side).
 * 10) Melee combat lacks combo moves so it just boils down to button mashing which can really boring and tedious if you run out of ammo or grenades.
 * 11) Gunplay is pretty bad for a few reasons:
 * 12) * Despite having a huge variety of weapons, there is no aiming reticle leading to a lot of blind fire. This can affect the gameplay pretty badly especially in chaos mode where you get penalized for killing civilians.
 * 13) * Strafing feels clunky especially after you press the run button.
 * 14) * The camera is very flawed as it'll constantly be jittering around and missing your target or direction. It gets worse with civilians roaming around the area.
 * 15) Terrible AI. Your Freedom gang barely even try to help you as they'll either stand by you or die. Escort missions are the worst offenders of this.
 * 16) * On top of that, the enemy AI can be flatout aggressive with the ones using flamethrowers being the most irritating (again more noticeable in East Side).
 * 17) Due to the previously mentioned three, you will often fail missions a lot.
 * 18) The gameplay is extremely repetitive as you'll be constantly doing the same types of missions over and over again with the generic story not helping either.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The concept of the game was pretty unique for its time but was poorly executed.
 * 2) There's a huge variety of weapons to use as mentioned with the likes of Pistols, SMGs, Shotguns, Rifles, Grenades and Rocket Launchers.
 * 3) The combat can be quite fun at times despite its limited move set.
 * 4) Blowing up building and properties is great and the effects pop-out and you're rewarded as such.
 * 5) The Xbox version adds a multiplayer mode that's good and is easily the best part of the game.

Trivia

 * M.R.R., the author of Actor Tomfoolery Prevention, compared it to the Antifa manifestations, pressumably due to both the game and manifestations having an awful lot of coincidences.