Urban Champion ReviewEver had a game you've seen a picture of or someone playing a game for a short amount of time, but never knew the games name? It's like Esscagoons voice from the Kirby animation. It sounds familiar, but you can't put your finger on it where you saw it before. I have seen a short snippet of a game that had two people on the street that are fighting, with some crazy person in the house throwing potted plants at them. This looked like a good game but never had the games name. At long last, after completely forgetting about it, I've found it! Urban Champion! I have no idea what this is about, so I guess lets look into it.
So it looks like your on your way to fight people on the street and become the Urban Champion and get that respect you deserve. Or your drunk and you want to fight for no reason. Or perhaps you just don't like people with green hair. Maybe you want to take over the world....I don't know! When you press start you jump right into the game. And I mean the game starts straight away when you press that button. It takes you my surprise nearly every time. So you are the man with the blue hair. It doesn't say what your name is. You are fighting the man with the green hair, doesn't say what his name is as well. I wonder what other opponents I get to fight in the game are....
So you advance to your opponent and you have to knock him to the edge of the screen. Simple enough. There are two attacks: a light punch, which throws your opponent back one step and is fast, and the heavy punch, which is slow, but throws your opponent back much further. Wait, only two attacks in a fighting game? Really? Well, it turns out you can attack them in the head or stomach. You can do this by pressing either up or down to attack the head or stomach respectfully. You can even see this by when your character is idle. If his hand in in front of his face, he can block attacks from his head and can attack the opponents head. Likewise with when his hand is in front of hos stomach.
So once you get that guy to fall off the edge on the screen (which was rather easy, wouldn't you say?), you walk to were he was and a new screen appears and.....wha...!?! How did he get to the edge of the new screen in such little time? Oh well, time to take you down again, you got two lives left. Ah yes, the life system. When you get knocked back off the screen, you lose a life. On your last life, at your end of the street is a manhole. If you get knocked into a manhole, it's game over for you. If you knock your opponent into the manhole, you do a victory dance with a blue haired lady showering you with confetti. You then....walk other the manhole as if it weren't there at all (don't defy physics like that!), and....wha....?!? The same green haired man? Didn't you get knocked into a manhole? How did you get out so quickly? Are you his brother? Father even? Twin? Clone? Copy-cat? Err....Alien? Dog? Cat? Monkey? Oh it doesn't matter, I'll finish you anyway.
There are two hindrances in this game. The mad potted plant throwing gentleman (with blue hair, thought it might be important to note), who seems to be in every house and throws potted plants (in case you didn't already guess). If one hits you or your opponent, you'll be stunned and any hit will send you toppling over. The other hindrance is the police car that pops up every now and then. When that happens, both you and your opponent step back to their edges of the street while the car passes. Both of you look into the sky and whistle. Isn't that just the best way of making you look innocent? It about as effective as breaking you Mums favorite China in front of her eyes and saying "It wasn't me" And then breaking another plate while she's still there. Although this can help in a pitch. When your close to the screen and about to lose a life, the car can come and you get a second chance. But sure is annoying when your about to win and the car pops up and ruins it.
When the timer gets to 0, the person closest to their side of the street will become arrested. The Police men wear a blue hat, but have green hair.....why oh why does everyone either have green or blue hair? They aren't even natural hair colours! On top of that, why is the only opponent you ever fight is a green haired man? Was that the best they could come up with? What were they thinking?
Producer: We need a game that has lots of verity in opponents that this guy must fight.
Idea guy: Or, we could have just the one green haired guy other and other.
Producer: That seems cheap, I simply won't do with it.
Idea guy: Ah, but you haven't heard the good part yet, he has green hair!
Producer: My word, why didn't I think of that before? It's not a natural hair colour as well, it'll throw them off their seats!
Maybe something along those lines.
You also get these icons when you beat a green haired man. You start out with these boxing gloves. When you get six of these, you'll get a flag. When you beat another green haired man, you'll get a flag instead of a boxing glove. Get six flags for a trophy. Get six trophies for a crown. Get six crowns.....I'm not sure what's after crowns, never got that far. I get as far as three crowns, and then I get a game over. The game gets really challenging after round 50. I'm surprised that such a simple game could be that hard when I get to about halfway to the max number of rounds (99).
And that's the game. You punch, you get them off the screen. You punch, you get them off the screen. You punch, you get them into a manhole. Rinse, lather, repeat.....Rinse, lather, repeat the rinse, lather, repeat....Rinse, lather, repeat the rinse, lather, repeat that is rinsing, lathering, and repeating the rinse, lather, repeat step. Rinse, lather, repeat the.....you get the picture. That is the entire game. You fight a green haired guy. That's all you ever fight. There are no special moves, no power-ups, no weapons apart from your fists. There is no selection, just the blue haired guy against the world of green haired guys that never seem to give up their ambition of getting rid of this blue haired guy. It's just an endless game of punching and hoping you'll hit and then doing it other and other and other and other with no variation at all....and.....and.......*trying to force himself to say something* I like it.
Apart from it being far too simple, it is strangely additive. Once I started playing, I didn't want to stop, until I got a game over, in which I would stop playing this game. But just the Street Fighter, I was compelled to play it again the next day. After a game over, I stopped and played something better. The day after? The same. The game leaves you feeling (if you got to round 50+) exhausted like you really have fought many green haired men. It would be stretching it to say it was as addictive like Tetris, but it certainly got an hour or two from me. Now granted, there are far better fight games out there, Street Fighter for instance, and I wouldn't recommend this game if you are a hard core fighting gamer. But it doesn't mean this should be left in the dark. It's worth a play for a little while, but after that, it's ready for some better fighting games. I suppose it's good to play this game if you are a complete beginner of fighting games to say the most.
Overall, I give this game a 7.3/10 for the addictiveness alone. Well, almost alone. The music is rather limited, and the graphics are rather simple. But the expressions on the fighters faces are very well done. You can just tell that blue haired man wants to punch the green haired mad when he is about to punch. The core game is far too simple to be in any fighting game, the move system is very limited and the lack of characters is truly baffling, but maybe that' why it's addictive. Although this review is from the person who liked Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the NES. It's not hard to play this game but it sure is hard to get to round 99. Don't give it a miss, but I won't blame you if you do.
Graphics
8 Sound
6 Addictive
7 Depth
3 Story
1 Difficulty
8
User Notice 
.png)
.png)
.png)
