This button masher is about as pointless as the millions of people running around in a mall carrying television sets.
(-) Revolution mode is tedious and linear; revolting pix-elated graphics; repetitive shallow combat; terribly unfriendly interface; the endless button mashing will make your hands hurt after playing as little as thirty minutes
This entire review is basically an over-written rant that all adds up to one basic principle, filling with unnecessary details and viewpoints that all add up to one simple conclusion. It's pointless. And what's just as interesting, is the core game itself seems to fall under the same belt. A million people run around screaming and yellow, carrying television sets and other large objects, and some fight you, but in the end the entire thing feels pointless. And that's overwhelmingly all you need to know about State of Emergency.
The game's mission mode is called revolution mode. In this mode, you choose one of two characters, three more being unlock-able if you push yourself for this torture long enough to beat the game, and you follow the arrow to perform jobs for other people. You find them in malls, streets, and two other settings, hidden among some hundreds of other people rioting and panicking for absolutely no good reason. Then you progress through the game by doing what they tell you to do, either break something, retrieve something, or beat some guys up. Even know each mission seems fairly different from the rest, it all wanes together and feels like a strain after playing too long because you're essentially doing the same thing, over and over again. For a game that should be about thrilling fright and agression, the entire thing feels incredibly tedious, and it kills any kind of state-of-mind that the developers were aiming for when they produced this.
There's also chaos mode, where you break things in the environment to earn a high score while avoiding angry civilians, and are meant to keep doing that until you inevitably lose all health. This is just as repetitive as the mission mode, but feels a little less punishing and little more laid out, but once again, all you're doing is punching and shooting things and it gets old fast.
All the game's control requirements require nothing more than spamming the buttons and moving around. Of course you move with the D-pad or analog stick, and attack with any of the four buttons. But you need to do this A LOT, and it will make your hands hurt if you somehow get sucked into this game for some morbid reason. Even though the game attempts to add apology for this behavior by allowing you to use guns and other weapons, as well as throw TV's because of course other people are running around carrying those things primarily because you need to kick their butt and throw it, the entire game still feels completely repetitive and completely pointless.
The game also suffers from some pretty long loading times, which could be interpreted as the game's own way of giving you a chance to apply Bengay to your hands after straining something. But what's even worse is the game's interface layout. The menus are pretty basic, but first of all there's no way to quit a match for any reason, and once you die, you are given a choice to either "Repeat That Level" or "Restart". Restart will take you back to the character screen and a few more clicks will bring you to the menu, but seriously it looks from a glance like both of these choices are synonymous of each other. They both make you redo the level, so there is NO END!
And to add to the displeasure even more, State of Emergency is not a good looking game by any means. From a technical perspective, it is impressive for a game to program that much people running about on screen with no slowdown, but not only does it seem pointless to the average player, it's also evident that a great toll had to be put on the game to implement that feature. The environments don't look all that great, and the people are so blocky that they look like moving toys. The frame rate isn't smooth, but it doesn't hinder the game, but still there's very little to make one believe they aren't playing a first generation Playstation title.
There isn't much sound to speak of either. Just some various screams of the many but few variations of people in the crowd, which are very low in volume if you consider how this would actually sound. There's an announcer that talks every now and then, but she often repeats herself, because how could some poor guy's car be on fire five times in the same ten minutes? The music is hardly noticeable.
There could have been so much potential in a game with something in mind as unique as a riot simulator, but to be generous that idea is a novelty. Because the shallow and physically painful game-play compromises what little value that the two modes in State Emergency to the point that its a forgettable experience that shouldn't even be bothered with. If you're into the idea of beating up pedestrians, pick up Grand Theft Auto San Andreas or something, and leave this in the bargain ben abyss. Otherwise, you'll probably run through a mall and reenact this game for the worse.