Pushing these two together, as expected, causes your character to perform a pain-dealing special move. Controls here are simple, if a bit too loose: One button performs punches, kicks, and the like another is responsible for the multitude of throws and grapples in your arsenal. These missions pit Brad, and later on, one of a variety of AI-controlled partners, against up to five separate enemies of varying power and skill. You do this in an expansive story mode, encapsulating a good 100 missions (read: fights). Your mission? Clear Shun Ying's name by, it appears, beating the living expletive out of the Zaps and pretty much every other gang roaming around downtown.
Shun Ying Lee, the sultry Chinese woman who the Zaps suspect to be behind the kidnapping, hires you instead. Someone's kidnapped KG, a member of the Zaps (one of the local gangs) who frankly has the words "pummel me, I'm a walking target" written all over his face. Urban Reign puts you in the shoes of Brad Hawk, tough-as-nails street brawler and Matrix-wannabe who may or may not have a heart of gold. Part wrestling game, part old-school beat-'em-up, part Tekken meets Boyz n the Hood, Urban Reign is a textbook example of a game trying to be too many things at once and ending up as very little of anything at all. On the other hand, it also tries to be "hip" and "edgy," causing the whole effort to fall relatively flat on its face. My point is: Urban Reign, for better or worse, hearkens back to the days of games passed, days where "Winners Don't Do Drugs" was emblazoned proudly on the attract mode of every game in the arcade. Games like Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, and 80 other games all inevitably made by Rockstar personify improper behavior, endorsing violence and drugs instead of, for example, fighting drugs by punching them in the face with a rocket launcher. Nowadays, the focus seems to have shifted more towards pure violence, sex, and shock value, leaving behind the subtle, sometimes confusing or cheesy nuances of games like NARC (the old arcade game, not the recent PS2 mess) and Streets of Rage for games that, instead of fighting the bad guy, allow the player to become the bad guy. Urban Reign also supports multi-tap play for up to four players to determine who really rules the hood.Long ago, the big offenders in video games were drugs and gangs, especially in the early '90s, when anti-drug awareness was at its peak. Focusing on the urban-brawler style of street fighting, players can team up with an AI-controlled character to pull off a host of devastating and destructive combo maneuvers against multiple enemies throughout the game’s 100 missions. Players can select from over 30 weapons – including bottles, bats and 2x4's – to be used in the destructible arenas to add to the mayhem.
Back alleys, junkyards and bars serve as battlegrounds for more than 60 different fighters, all of which boast their own unique set of fighting styles including boxing, wrestling and street fighting. Urban Reign offers players non-stop, inner-city brawling action with no time restrictions or referees. Players are thrown into a full-blown turf war, involving gang corruption and street justice that spans from the neighborhood block all the way to the upper levels of city government. Players are thrown into a full-blown turf war, involving gang corruption and street justice that spans from the neighborhood block all the way to In Urban Reign, players assume the role of a gritty street brawler who has been hired by one of the city’s dominant gangs to protect its leader.