It is the year 1999. The end of a century draws near and a veil of darkness engulfs the streets of Union city. Ancient prohpecies of destruction seem to unfold and in the rise of a crime wave a rookie cop emerges.
It is the young and ambitious Darci Stern who stumbles apon an ever increasingly violent and ruthless gang.
During her investigation she meets a man named Roper who warnes here about the upcoming danger, She intially rejects the claims of this strange old man.
As the story unfolds she realizes she was wrong, dead wrong.
But before Darci can hit the streets as a police officer she has to prove her worth and skill during a section of training missions including an obstacle course, driving lessons and combat tutorial. Once completed, her first tasks are simple police tasks, ranging from bringing a car back for impouning or talking a suicidal man from jumping.
Since Darci is quite an agile woman she can find her way trough the city easily by climbing on rooftops, stairs or fences or ziplining from power lines or using her authority as a cop to commandeer any vehicle roaming the streets.
During her back alley adventures she can find several power-ups that will boost her strength, stamina, reflexes and health.
But she is not alone in the city during her missions she meets a whole array people like the aforementioned Roper.
But not all people are as helpful as him. The streets are filled with people and fellow police men are on their jobs as well as thugs, nutjobs and prostitutes.
While most citizens are not very talketive there are some who are willing to reveal hidden crimes and some are just in for a small chat.
At first these crimes seem unrelated and down at the precinct they are seen as random acts of violence. But Darci believes otherwise, she frequently runs into thugs sporting a Black cat on
their jackets. They call themselves "Wild Cats" and are ranting about the end of time.
Darci is determined to get to the bottom of this and she decides to take on the Wild Cats by herself. A bold move but Darci has an array of hand to hand moves to her disposal and she is also quite skilled in the use of firearms and melee weapons.
She can perform kick and punch combos or sneak up on a unsuspecting person and knock them out to arrest them and search their bodies for weaponsm ammo or first aid kids.
Even as she is seamingly outnumbered she can hold her ground using back kicks, throws, and roundhouse kicks.
As for firearms she will aquire pistols, shotguns, M16's and grenades and most low thugs carry a knife or a baseball bat.
"Evil never sleeps" seems to be the motto of union city because most missions take place in a dark and moody night time. But not all takes place on the streets sometimes she has to investigate clubs, mansions or warehouses to unfold the mistery surrounding the street gang turned cult.
Being a console based action game at it's core it's best played with a gamepad. But my experience with the keyboard wasn't that horrible. The controls are quite responsive and the combat is easy to master. The jumping is Tombraider-like akward (maybe that's why the game is released by Eidos)wich can cause a deadly fall from time to time.
Maybe you've noticed I did not mention any car driving besides the training. And for a reason: it is horrible.
outside of the training, and a few mission, it's faster and more rewarding to take the alleys and rooftops as they provide power ups and sub missons.
The game has level based free roaming gameplay as on every map, wich are not that big, you can go wherever you like. Every mission can be replayed after finishing to get power ups or just for kicks because some of them are just fun to play.
Later in the game Roper takes over from time to time, he's stronger yet slower and plays quite the same as Darci.
As the title suggests I've only played the PC version and I can honestly say it's graphics are better than it's PSX counterpart due to hardware support.
The character models aren't that special but they do the job. As for the surroundigs they are pretty. the houses are not just flat, textured boxes, they have 3D window frames, something that was not a standard back then. The sky and people reflect in pools on the side walk and in some places a think blanket of mist covers the floor that swirls around you as you pass trough.
As in most cities the streets are well lit at night and the game never becomes too dark and maintains it light hearted feel over it's cource.
Most cities aren't quiet either.
The sounds of small animals and sirens wailing, hang in the air. And the wind howls around the rooftops of higher structures as people walk and drive on the streets below.
The voice acting is not award winning but this is not a game that takes itself too serious so it fits right in and it's not RE horrendous.
As for the music it's mostly upbeat electronic tunes while running or fighting and q mysterious sounding one while sneaking, I found the best tune to be the one in the credit sequence.
It's a lengthy game with quite some replay value. But most of all it's a forgotten gem of a game. One overshadowed by games like Half-life and System shock 2.
If you are interested in a semi-sandbox game before GTA 3 came out, or just love to play good action games, see if you can find it somewhere and give it a try.
You have my blessing.
It is the young and ambitious Darci Stern who stumbles apon an ever increasingly violent and ruthless gang.
During her investigation she meets a man named Roper who warnes here about the upcoming danger, She intially rejects the claims of this strange old man.
As the story unfolds she realizes she was wrong, dead wrong.
But before Darci can hit the streets as a police officer she has to prove her worth and skill during a section of training missions including an obstacle course, driving lessons and combat tutorial. Once completed, her first tasks are simple police tasks, ranging from bringing a car back for impouning or talking a suicidal man from jumping.
Since Darci is quite an agile woman she can find her way trough the city easily by climbing on rooftops, stairs or fences or ziplining from power lines or using her authority as a cop to commandeer any vehicle roaming the streets.
During her back alley adventures she can find several power-ups that will boost her strength, stamina, reflexes and health.
But she is not alone in the city during her missions she meets a whole array people like the aforementioned Roper.
But not all people are as helpful as him. The streets are filled with people and fellow police men are on their jobs as well as thugs, nutjobs and prostitutes.
While most citizens are not very talketive there are some who are willing to reveal hidden crimes and some are just in for a small chat.
At first these crimes seem unrelated and down at the precinct they are seen as random acts of violence. But Darci believes otherwise, she frequently runs into thugs sporting a Black cat on
their jackets. They call themselves "Wild Cats" and are ranting about the end of time.
Darci is determined to get to the bottom of this and she decides to take on the Wild Cats by herself. A bold move but Darci has an array of hand to hand moves to her disposal and she is also quite skilled in the use of firearms and melee weapons.
She can perform kick and punch combos or sneak up on a unsuspecting person and knock them out to arrest them and search their bodies for weaponsm ammo or first aid kids.
Even as she is seamingly outnumbered she can hold her ground using back kicks, throws, and roundhouse kicks.
As for firearms she will aquire pistols, shotguns, M16's and grenades and most low thugs carry a knife or a baseball bat.
"Evil never sleeps" seems to be the motto of union city because most missions take place in a dark and moody night time. But not all takes place on the streets sometimes she has to investigate clubs, mansions or warehouses to unfold the mistery surrounding the street gang turned cult.
Being a console based action game at it's core it's best played with a gamepad. But my experience with the keyboard wasn't that horrible. The controls are quite responsive and the combat is easy to master. The jumping is Tombraider-like akward (maybe that's why the game is released by Eidos)wich can cause a deadly fall from time to time.
Maybe you've noticed I did not mention any car driving besides the training. And for a reason: it is horrible.
outside of the training, and a few mission, it's faster and more rewarding to take the alleys and rooftops as they provide power ups and sub missons.
The game has level based free roaming gameplay as on every map, wich are not that big, you can go wherever you like. Every mission can be replayed after finishing to get power ups or just for kicks because some of them are just fun to play.
Later in the game Roper takes over from time to time, he's stronger yet slower and plays quite the same as Darci.
As the title suggests I've only played the PC version and I can honestly say it's graphics are better than it's PSX counterpart due to hardware support.
The character models aren't that special but they do the job. As for the surroundigs they are pretty. the houses are not just flat, textured boxes, they have 3D window frames, something that was not a standard back then. The sky and people reflect in pools on the side walk and in some places a think blanket of mist covers the floor that swirls around you as you pass trough.
As in most cities the streets are well lit at night and the game never becomes too dark and maintains it light hearted feel over it's cource.
Most cities aren't quiet either.
The sounds of small animals and sirens wailing, hang in the air. And the wind howls around the rooftops of higher structures as people walk and drive on the streets below.
The voice acting is not award winning but this is not a game that takes itself too serious so it fits right in and it's not RE horrendous.
As for the music it's mostly upbeat electronic tunes while running or fighting and q mysterious sounding one while sneaking, I found the best tune to be the one in the credit sequence.
It's a lengthy game with quite some replay value. But most of all it's a forgotten gem of a game. One overshadowed by games like Half-life and System shock 2.
If you are interested in a semi-sandbox game before GTA 3 came out, or just love to play good action games, see if you can find it somewhere and give it a try.
You have my blessing.
