Urban Reign, a beat-‘em-up set in a gritty urban world filled with gangs and 70s-style karate experts, serves as a spiritual successor to Death by Degrees in the ‘Oh, Namco came kinda close!’ series.  With a generous helping of moves, blocks, and acrobatics, what could’ve been a title to re-establish the fading genre and set it on a new path has instead caused controllers worldwide to be hurled at walls, floors, and televisions.  Despite relentlessly sporadic AI, generic missions and enemies and levels, the fast-paced, varied fighting system almost manages to prevail. Almost.

In Ragtown, Green Harbor, there is only one thing for a brawler like you to do, and that is to get hired by a sultry gang leader (aren’t they always?) named Shun Ying Lee, to fend off the Zaps (yes, that is their name) and other hoodlums who think she is responsible for some current problems.  In the 100-mission story mode you visit such exotic locales as back alleys, parking lots, bars, garages, and other fabulous city-centric hot spots.  Before each bout you are informed of the latest story developments and what has to be done for completion of that round, with the objectives being you having to beat up one or more suspiciously similar people, sometimes with a time limit, and then proceeding to the next location.  In short: It gets repetitive.

But we aren’t really playing this game for the locations or not-so-varied enemies; we’re playing it to beat the living hell out of digitized hoodlums. In many respects, the fighting system is an excellent introduction into what could’ve been a solid series. Instead, it’s horribly crippled by the AI and lack of a solid means of implementing new moves.  To be sure, tuning difficulty in a game is tricky business. Sega was one of the finest companies to recognize the importance of easing players into their new roles, and they managed to do it for many years - but Namco is no Sega. Urban Reign makes token attempts to ease players into what is asked of them, and then proceeds to humiliate them with opponents so perfect and aggressive that they could very well be the Perfect Storm of Thuggery. 

The tools used to teach the player are inadequate.  For those who prefer to experiment outside the story mode, there is a tutorial, practice mode, and “fighter files.”  Fighter files give background info on the different characters, which should theoretically give some rudimentary help in tackling them in combat, while the tutorial is simply text descriptions of the moves and is separate from the practice mode.  This means that you’ll have to exit out of practice to re-read what you just skimmed over in one of the numerous bullet-list explanations in the tutorial - not very intuitive.  The text descriptions are also available in the story mode as well, appearing at the beginning of missions.  Now, you would assume that the mission would offer you a chance to employ the recently described move, normally against an opponent that is either familiar with performing the move themselves or is particularly vulnerable to it; in this way, your skills would gradually increase, and you would never be left behind your opponents.  Not so in Urban Reign.

There seems to be a formula used throughout, which is that there will be Y amount of pain for Y X amount of opponents.  This is most striking in the beginning when the first four or so challenges can be beaten with little difficulty, but then you get to the first boss-ish kind of opponent and he proceeds to beat the sweet stuffing out of you.  Accordingly, once you are beaten enough, he will either become so lax or stupid that you will be able to defeat him.  All of the cool moves you read about before the matches? Forget about them.  As you progress even the middling levels will become challenging, as one opponent gives way to several opponents at once, and that means there will be moves performed on you that will involve multiple parties and severe damage.  Between each victory is a montage of painful defeats: kicked through rails; your face stomped into the ground; slammed into bars; beaten against shelves to the point where the shelves break; punches to the gut; kicks to the face - and that fancy move you just learned? Well, not only was that blocked, but you were then held by your leg and swung like a baseball bat into a brick wall.  As you win you will be able to upgrade your attacks (strike, grapple, body region damage, special move, increased weapon proficiency, endurance against normal attacks, and endurance against head, upper and lower body) by a set amount of points, but you begin to doubt if it’s doing any good as you proceed to get knocked around like a ragdoll.  And what is particularly heartbreaking is when your special move, the one strike that you depend on to get you out of dire straits, is blocked and then countered by some amazing move that will leave you mumbling and slightly teary-eyed.

The combat system itself is quite fun, though.  You can attack specific regions of the body and there are numerous grapples, dodges and special moves, as well as weapons and items to pick up and walls to run on.  The animations are very fluid, so the transition from you punching someone in the face, then running up a wall to jump off and grapple their head between your knees - and then flipping them onto the concrete - is a visual delight, and very satisfying.  Even when you’re being pummeled by multiple opponents you’ll note how cool some of the moves are, like being placed on the shoulders of one person while another launches himself off something and straight into you.  As you learn the moves, you feel fairly accomplished when you achieve victory, but that feeling is often short-lived as you realize you either got lucky or the computer decided it was time for you to win. And you will feel that way because you will experience some grueling matches, some consisting of the computer juggling you constantly with blows, and continuing to juggle you after you manage to actually dodge one of the hits.  Dodging itself is tricky, and is alright when facing off against one or two opponents on the ground, but anything more and you’re just pressing the button and the directional pad/analog stick erratically in the hopes of getting out of a jam; but, like I said, even if you do the computer can still unleash some unblockable moves on you that will leave you bewildered and often pissed off.

Yet, the fighting itself remains fun.  You can also bring a friend along to participate, and dish out some of the more extravagant multi-person moves as well.  For those who beat the game – and winning story mode is more attrition than anything else, because, aside from the fighting, there is little to encourage you on and much to test your patience – will unlock free play mode (fighting through the story with unlocked characters), as well as Paul and Law from Tekken – you know, incase you haven’t had enough of them in their eight previous appearances.

Overall: 5/10

Urban Reign’s enjoyable fighting system is marred by everything else.  While generic locations and enemies aren’t deal breakers, when compounded with uninteresting missions and a brutal AI that is both incompetent and fierce, the result is a resounding thud. You came close, Namco…kinda. Maybe sort of close to being close.