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Platform: PS2,
XB, PC
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State
of Emergency 2
Back
when Grand Theft Auto III was first released, many wondered if Rockstar
could come up with a game even more violent, and controversial. Eventually the publisher teamed up with developer VIS
Entertainment to
create State of Emergency, which had more over the top violence than you
could shake a stick at. There
was a ton of hype behind it, and when the game finally got released it
sold like hotcakes. Now,
VIS is at it again with a sequel heading to the PS2, Xbox, and PC.
Taking
place ten years after the original game, the Corporation has come back
to the forefront, doing its evil, societal control mumbo jumbo once
again, and as such, players take control of Spanky and the gang in
order to take down the hordes of evil corporate types. Outside
of this basic premise, VIS claims that the story in State of Emergency 2
will have a lot more depth that the original game, which isn’t saying
much considering how lacking the story in that game was.
Nonetheless, kudos to them if they can make a narrative that’s
halfway interesting this time.
In the original State of Emergency, players picked a character, got dropped in a level, and tried to complete some basic mission objectives. The game kept things simple, making for an extremely violent button-mashing outing. This core concept appears to be remaining |
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intact
for the sequel, but with a few tweaks thrown in for good measure.
For this game, players will notice that the various characters
arsenal of attacks are far more varied from one character to the next.
On top of this, players will be able to switch between different
characters on the fly over the course of a mission, taking advantage of
their special skills when the need arises.
One area of the original SoE that took a few knocks was the game’s visuals. It wasn’t exactly a pretty game, and there was quite a bit of slowdown thanks to all of the things happening on |
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screen
at any given time. For part
two, the game is getting a new and improved graphics engine that will
pretty things up a tad, but more importantly is being designed to handle
about 500 characters running around on-screen at once.
When
the original State of Emergency was released, people were snapping it up
left and right. Assuming
that fan base is still lurking around, and haven’t moved on to greener
pastures over the last three years, this sequel may prove just as
popular with all of the gameplay enhancements going into it.
(August 20, 2005)
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