How did I not notice this game sooner? Urban Reign is a PS2 beat-em-up by Namco that was released a few years ago. I had played it a long time ago, back when I bought SoulCalibur III (it was one of the demos on the extra disc included with the game). For some reason though, it didn't make much of an impression on me to give the full game a look. Probably 'cause I didn't quite get the controls from the basic rundown they give you at the start of the demo.

Hanging around on Youtube a little more lately (something I didn't do much before 'cause of my previous connection, which was slower and had a bandwidth limit), I was looking at some game videos. I guess I somehow got led to an Urban Reign video, and I became interested in the game. Then I eventually got to GameFAQs and looked at a FAQ to see more details about it, like modes and stuff. I stumbled on a full detailing of controls for all the moves and decided to give the demo another chance, now that I know how to do everything.

...Not bad. Pretty fun. So I picked it up a few days ago, $10 new and sealed. I've been having a lot of fun with it. There aren't THAT many moves to do and it can start getting repetitive easily, but I think that's pretty much inevitable when it comes to most beat-em-ups. Maybe it's just the nature of the genre, and it's generally hard to not feel repetitive fairly soon. Still fun though.

While there's not a huge list of moves for each character, the moves that are there look really cool and look and sound very suitably painful. I think they did a great job there, and it really makes you feel that satisfying impact. I think most of the many characters have completely different moves, too. I'm not too sure since I haven't tried many characters. At least it will give a lot of variety among characters, if not among a single character's moveset.

The controls are really easy to get into. They remind me of the first couple of Smackdown (wrestling) games, where you modify your moves by pressing a certain direction (or no direction) with the grapple or strike button. And you have different moves depending on the situation, like if you're carrying a weapon, if you grapple from behind, or if you strike while dashing. So I felt right at home, since I played those old Smackdown games to death. There are also some cool double-team moves and moves that attack two characters at once.

Not too long ago, I hunted down a copy of Tekken 4, partly for its Force Mode (a 3D beat-em-up). I was really disappointed with it. You're always locked on to someone, which makes for awkward, stiff movement. The camera angle wasn't very comfortable either. But Urban Reign...THIS is more what I wanted it to play like. Nice.

I still think Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks would have to be my favourite 3D beat-em-up. It also takes longer to get repetitive since it's more story-driven, there's travelling and a little exploration to be done between fighting, some sidequests, stuff like that. The art design appeals to me more as well. Urban Reign is JUST fighting though. There's nothing in between.

One thing I do think Urban Reign does better though: ONE-PLAYER VERSUS MODE! Shaolin Monks' versus mode is only two-player! I got to see how absolutely kickass it was when my brother dropped by and played, and now I can't play it by myself! It even has characters that can't be used anywhere else BUT versus! Why do developers make modes that can only be played with another person?? This is the same complaint I had with the battle modes in kart games like Super Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing.

Anyway...yeah, Urban Reign: fun.