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 Urban Chaos? Urban Chaos is a third person brawler developed by Mucky Foot (a British game company that also produced Startopia and Blade II) and published in 1999. Released for the PC, Playstation and Dreamcast, the game casts the player in the role of D'Arci Stern, a rookie cop in the Union City Police Department as the city prepares for the local elections and an upswing in gang violence by the Wildcats. Naturally, things go downhill from there. And weird. This game is not to be confused with Urban Chaos: Riot Response. I, berryjon, will be subtitling the 'Core' Mission videos. In those videos, I will be making as straight a line as possible through the mission to reach the goal. These videos will tend to be fairly short. However, for the 'Exploration Videos', I will be co-commentating with Arthur D. Wolfe (whom I will encourage to make his own commentary in the thread) and we will chat over a more complete exploration of the mission. The Exploration Videos will assume that you have watched the respective Core Video first, so please respect that. Spoiler Policy While I would normally allow spoilers in a game this old, I will have to ask the thread to not spoil anything. There are certain events and enemies that need to experienced firsthand to fully understand. However, feel free to talk about anything that's already appeared in a video. This is why I'm not posting the opening video yet either. Videos OPENING VIDEO YouTube | Polsy
Cast  D'arci Stern D.O.B: 07/07/1970 Officer Stern is ambitious and enthusiastic as you would expect from a family with a strong tradition of law enforcement (both her brother and father served in the UCPD and both were sadly lost in the line of duty). However, she also has a tendency to be headstrong and sometimes over-zealous in the execution of her duties. She is a loyal and dependable partner, but prefers to work on her own. Officer Stern is extremely athletic, with an excellent level of stamina. At present, she can run faster and jump farther than anyone else in the department. In 1983, she was brought up on assault charges brought by the suspect in her brother's murder. Charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence.  Roper McIntyre D.O.B: 01/01/44 Current Address: None Known Associates: None Previous Conviction: Assault, Deception, Breaking and Entering, Impersonating a Police Officer, Resisting Arrest. Multiple charges for Firearms offences, Vagrancy and Drunkenness. Subject is ex-military and a former informant for the UCPD. Psychiatric reports indicate paranoia. He sees himself as some form of vigilante. The subject is extremely dangerous, and should not be approached without backup – even when subject is unarmed Weapons Fists (First Mission: Combat Tutorial) The default melee weapon, D'Arci's fists and feet are usable at all times and in (almost) all situations. Capable of dealing quick and devastating combos, as well as subduing suspects for arrest, her basic combat skills stay relevant all the way into the endgame. Knife (First Mission: RTA) The Knife is an upgrade to D'arci's punch that trades combo power for damage potential. I don't like using it because the recovery is so slow, but it does have its place in the “I need to kill you” department, and nothing better is available. Baseball Bat (First Mission: Gun Hunt) The Baseball Bat has two distinct advantages. The first is the long melee reach, greater than fists, kicks or the knife. The second is that whatever you hit goes down in one blow, ready to be arrested or stomped. The problem is that these advantages also apply to the WildCats, and if you see a group charging at you with Bats, pull out your guns or start running. I love it. Pistol (First Mission: RTA) Being the most basic ranged weapon, the Pistol comes with a 15 shot clip and decent range. Ammo is plentiful as the game progresses, so using the pistol to thin down enemies as you charge into them is always a viable option. But like all 'basic' weapons, there are more interesting ones later on. In theory, based on a 9mm Semi-Automatic pistol. Grenade (First Mission: The Jump) Ranged explosives, the Grenade is a beautiful weapon that has some issues due to the game's floaty physics engine. They are best used to ambush enemies around corners or are otherwise unaware of you. Just keep an eye out for the same. When using, 'punch' to pull the pin, then 'punch' a second time to actually throw it. This will allow you to 'cook' it during its six-second countdown. Shotgun (First Mission: Gate Crasher) Short ranged, but extremely powerful. And has the nicest sound out of all the weapons. Just get up close to someone and pull the trigger. However, the time between shots can be a bit long, especially in tight quarters. Based on a Pump-Action 12-Gauge, it has an 8 round magazine. Assault Rifle (First Mission: Gate Crasher) The final and most powerful weapon in the game, as long as you are holding down the attack button, things will die; even if they'll only go down in two hits. Not so great at long range, but that's closer to the engine's draw distance than not. Don't be fooled by the 30 round magazine, that can vanish very quickly and spare ammo can be very hard to come by. The game says its an M-16, but Arthur D Wolfe disagrees (see Mission 06a: Arms Breaker Exploration). C4 (First Mission: Arms Breaker) A planted explosive with a five second detonator, this 'weapon' is mainly used for blowing up objective points. Though, if you're lucky, Grenades will do in a pinch. QUESTIONS FROM THE THREAD Glazius posted:How much of an upgrade do all those attribute pickups give you, anyway? Or put another way, how much above speedrun-D'arci is explore-D'arci, three levels in? I'm going to answer the second part first. There is no functional difference between "Speedrun" and "Explore". My 'system' for this game, due to being able to repeat levels as many times as you want is to first make a pass or two through the level to find everything and get down an 'optimum' route in my head. I'll also take this time to pick up all the powerups I can find. As I mentioned in the video, you can't grind for powerups, so collecting them again does nothing. Once I'm comfortable with the level, I'll do the 'Speedrun/Core Mission' video and process that. Then I'll go back into the level again and record the exploration video. Thus, you see effectively the same D'arci in both videos on a level. Now, to answer your first question, there are four types of powerups. Constitution, Strength, Stamina and Reflexes. Actually, let me call up a picture for you. These are D'arci's stats after finishing Mission 7: Media Trouble:  Every Tack on the screen there is a map, with all available missions under them. Physical Training is selected at the middle-top, and is crossed out to indicate that it is already completed. Pins that are Gold/Green (they flash) indicate missions that are new and can be taken. (I've also unlocked a couple secret/bonus missions that I'll get to when the time is right.) But what you want to see is at the bottom of the screenshot. D'arci starts with 100 hit points (the curved bar beside the GPS), and every point of Constitution gives her +1HP. Health Packs give a fixed +50 per item. Stamina affects how long she can run. I started a new fresh game with D'arci having no Stamina, and she was able to sprint for 22 seconds before tiring and running out of Stamina. Here, have a quick and dirty video. Using the stats above, D'arci was able to sprint for 27.5 seconds. Now, (27.5-22)/22 = 0.25. Now, given that her Stamina is 26, I can make the educated guess that the Stamina 'value' is a % increase to her running time from a base of 22 seconds. Based on this trend, of every 'powerup' being a single percentage point increase, I can conclude that every point of strength allows Darci to deal more damage with her Melee attacks (as the manual states that Strength = Melee damage), while every point in Reflexes affects how fast D'arci can lock on with ranged weapons (how soon the green crosshatches turn to red). The concept that powerups are percentage increases over some base value also seems like a simple thing to program in, which would allow for D'arci's stats to improve on the fly during a mission. berryjon fucked around with this message at Apr 13, 2013 around 14:44 |
| # ? Jan 14, 2013 01:45 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 15:37 |
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Seeing as it has been over a decade since I last played this game (and I did not get far when I did), I will base all my plot speculation on the videos I have participated in. My current theory is that the prostitute clone army is behind it all, but I am not entirely sure as to their motives yet. I suspect it has something to do with information control though.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 01:38 |
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This was one of my favourite games for years after it came out. I sank so much time into just exploring the levels and beat it over and over. The combat is fun for the most part too, the video doesn't make me feel like my memory was deceiving me in that regard either. I've been hoping there'd be an LP of this game since I lost my old CD of the game, so I can memory lane good and proper. Cheers for this!
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 04:23 |
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I'm just watching the first video now and one thing that stands out is that you've got the subtitles' timers usually going way too fast to read (ie UI explanation) or, more rarely, taking too long to go away. Looks like a pretty neat game otherwise, never heard of it before until now.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 11:45 |
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Hang on, was this game based off of the engine for Tomb Raider? Darci's jumps/running are almost exactly the same as Lara's, but quicker.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 12:58 |
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Oh man! Loved this game when I was younger, I have the PS1 version with the blurrier graphics and the character icons are definitely different too, the criminals looked like a sack of potatoes. I think the dual commentary will be the videos I watch, having recently played the game. @Samover - Funny you should mention Tomb Raider, looking at the back of the PS1 case right now shows a qoute from the Official Playstation Magazine UK - "Urban Chaos already dubbed as the Tomb Raider of the millennium." They thought pretty far ahead!  The back of the case details some graphical things as well "3d volumetric fog, rain, snow, night and day simulation, wall-hugging shadows and real-time simulation crashes enhance the atmosphere and action of the game" Good to know Mucky Foot.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 13:10 |
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The subtitles are a running problem for me, I've gone with the will of the majority in the Sand Castle to keep them longer for the slower readers. Unfortunately, I won't be able to show off all the fun graphics in this game. The way the game presents itself causes flickering in the recording video, and this is the best I could do after input from the TechFort.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 17:20 |
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berryjon posted:Unfortunately, I won't be able to show off all the fun graphics in this game. The way the game presents itself causes flickering in the recording video, and this is the best I could do after input from the TechFort. I have many, many memories of the graphics of this game just outright wigging out for a long time until I finally got a graphics card it agreed with. Even then sometimes I would boot it up and nothing would have textures. When it worked though it was great, but I had a feeling it would be hard to record just because of those issues. You have all my salutes for going through with this.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 21:56 |
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I am genuinely excited by this LP... I had never heard of this game until I saw your sandcastle post, and it looks like something I would have loved to play as a kid if I had known it had existed. It's surprising how few games there are where you play as a cop and actually go around doing proper cop business and arresting people rather than shooting up the place. Let's see... Police Story and LA Noire are the only ones that spring to mind. The fact that it has these LA Noire style mini-missions occur while heading around town (which are actually on a timer rather than random) aseems pretty sophisticated for the time. Also, next time people make some comment about a lack of female gaming heroines other than Lara Croft or Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, I shall point them in the direction of D'arci Stern. It's interesting that this was published by Eidos, who also published Tomb Raider. It looks like after the success of Lara they were happy to greenlight other games with female protagonists, and surprisingly this one isn't a case of male wish fulfilment. We haven't seen much personality yet (just a few brief lines of dialogue) but she seems like a pretty cool character. berryjon posted:The subtitles are a running problem for me, I've gone with the will of the majority in the Sand Castle to keep them longer for the slower readers. Am I right in thinking that the training video is identical to the one in the sandcastle, but the video of the first mission has completely new subtitles with different text? The subtitle timing in the mission video does seem better now.
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| # ? Jan 15, 2013 23:47 |
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UPDATE! *Mission 02 – The Jump: YouTube | Polsy *Mission 02a – The Jump Exploration: YouTube | Polsy
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 04:25 |
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I know they're not really related or anything, but are you going to do Riot Response in the future? It's a pretty underrated game.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 05:31 |
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Nope. Don't have it. And I already have plans for my next couple LPs in place. edit; Any suggestions for how I should make my Updates more visible? Because just announce the video's are up seems kinda 'bleh' to me.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 06:16 |
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Oh man this game  I have the disc right here for it, I was trying to work up the guts to LP it.Gotta love a game where kneeing people in the balls is an effective way to control the larger fights.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 07:38 |
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It was the conversation with the rubberneckers and "OFF THE SIDE" that really made me fall in love with this game. Also I love the park. You meet the most interesting of people there.
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| # ? Jan 16, 2013 13:09 |
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berryjon posted:Nope. Don't have it. And I already have plans for my next couple LPs in place. I reckon you should put an image in the update post, above the links to the videos. Perhaps a screenshot from that bit of the game (if you can find something visually interesting to take a screenshot of), or some game artwork or something. Also perhaps put a duplicate of it at the very top of the OP so it is immediately visible if anyone visits the front page of the thread.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 00:57 |
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Is there any reason why the people behind this game decided to make D'arci look like a violent Whoopi Goldberg?
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 02:19 |
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The leaves in this game look a little strange, how they shoot up into the air anytime you get close to them. By the way, does the game control the camera with the right analog stick? It just seemed in the second video that that might not be the case.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 02:50 |
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This is a PC game, so I'm pretty sure he's controlling with a keyboard and mouse. The game was later ported to PlayStation, and I think maybe Dreamcast as well.Crabtree posted:Is there any reason why the people behind this game decided to make D'arci look like a violent Whoopi Goldberg? Who wouldn't want to play as a violent Whoopi Goldberg? But yeah, I like the fact that we've got a female protagonist who hasn't been designed to be eye candy.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 03:15 |
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Blue Ghost posted:By the way, does the game control the camera with the right analog stick? It just seemed in the second video that that might not be the case. your evil twin posted:This is a PC game, so I'm pretty sure he's controlling with a keyboard and mouse. The game was later ported to PlayStation, and I think maybe Dreamcast as well. Up Arrow: Forward Left: Turn Left Down: Backward Right: Turn Right A: Free Look Z: Kick X: Punch/Fire Gun C: Context Action (Crawl/Sprint/Interact/Grab/Arrest, etc Space: Jump Enter: Cycle Weapons # Keys: Weapons What is this Mouse you speak of? What is the Analog stick (although you can configure the game to use a gamepad if you wanted)? I have started building my Death Montage Video. Two in the fifth mission from trying to make tighter/better exploration videos. I'll post it at the end after everything else.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 06:10 |
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berryjon posted:What is this Mouse you speak of? What is the Analog stick (although you can configure the game to use a gamepad if you wanted)?  Plug in a 360 controller, they work with this game if you really need a controller to play with.(Camera control on the right thumbstick would be awesome if it worked that way.)
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 07:12 |
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Oh, I have a controller. I even tried using it on this game, but I found the keyboard commands to be much better.
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| # ? Jan 17, 2013 07:39 |
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 23:58 |
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I've been really enjoying this LP so far! I remember playing this on the PS1 when I was a lot younger, and wound up curious about something - I'm not sure if it's a spoiler, as it's not exactly story-related (and might even just be me misremembering something), but if it is, I'll edit it out of my post: Are you going to show off what happens if you mow down/arrest too many random civilians? Or indeed, DOES anything happen? I seem to remember it does, but it's been years since I played.
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| # ? Jan 23, 2013 14:44 |
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The fence that wobbled when your car hit it... if you'd hit it harder could you have broken the fence? Heh, I'm afraid that they weren't talking about a mining skip... this game is by British developers, and here in the UK a skip is the term for what Americans call a dumpster. (I think in America the contents of the dumpster are emptied into a truck, while in the UK the entire skip is taken away and the contents tipped into a landfill site.) And indeed you find the gun behind some skips/dumpsters of some sort. It's a shame that they won't let you knock people off a roof in a fight. I guess it's to avoid you accidentally killing someone you wanted to arrest, or to prevent you from cheesing fights that are supposed to be tough by knocking people off in one or two hits. (That was the best thing in Oni... if you were on some precarious ledges or walkways, it didn't matter how tough the enemies were, you could kill them in seconds by knocking them off the edge. Great fun until an enemy does it to you!) I wonder if that helpful citizen at the end of the exploration video was a friend of D'arci or just some random guy being helpful? He says "Busy tonight huh? Have this," he might just have been making a general comment about crime in the city that night, or maybe he was asking her out and she said she was busy?
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| # ? Jan 24, 2013 12:35 |
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your evil twin posted:The fence that wobbled when your car hit it... if you'd hit it harder could you have broken the fence? Sadly, no. It shakes, but doesn't even bend. I suppose it helps disguise the fact that the car just stops at that point. your evil twin posted:Heh, I'm afraid that they weren't talking about a mining skip... this game is by British developers, and here in the UK a skip is the term for what Americans call a dumpster. (I think in America the contents of the dumpster are emptied into a truck, while in the UK the entire skip is taken away and the contents tipped into a landfill site.) And indeed you find the gun behind some skips/dumpsters of some sort. I liked the idea that UC was an old mining town. It gives some nice colour and character to the city. So that's the interpretation I went with. Why would Deeks use a silly British term like that?  your evil twin posted:I wonder if that helpful citizen at the end of the exploration video was a friend of D'arci or just some random guy being helpful? He says "Busy tonight huh? Have this," he might just have been making a general comment about crime in the city that night, or maybe he was asking her out and she said she was busy? Actually, he's hanging outside the entrance to the precinct in the previous missions. He's always been polite and nice, and I can never seem to remember to talk to him.
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| # ? Jan 24, 2013 16:55 |
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How much of an upgrade do all those attribute pickups give you, anyway? Or put another way, how much above speedrun-D'arci is explore-D'arci, three levels in?
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| # ? Jan 24, 2013 18:00 |
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Glazius posted:How much of an upgrade do all those attribute pickups give you, anyway? Or put another way, how much above speedrun-D'arci is explore-D'arci, three levels in? I'm going to answer the second part first. There is no functional difference between "Speedrun" and "Explore". My 'system' for this game, due to being able to repeat levels as many times as you want is to first make a pass or two through the level to find everything and get down an 'optimum' route in my head. I'll also take this time to pick up all the powerups I can find. As I mentioned in the video, you can't grind for powerups, so collecting them again does nothing. Once I'm comfortable with the level, I'll do the 'Speedrun/Core Mission' video and process that. Then I'll go back into the level again and record the exploration video. Thus, you see effectively the same D'arci in both videos on a level. Now, to answer your first question, there are four types of powerups. Constitution, Strength, Stamina and Reflexes. Actually, let me call up a picture for you. These are D'arci's stats after finishing Mission 7 Media Trouble: Every Tack on the screen there is a map, with all available missions under them. Physical Training is selected at the middle-top, and is crossed out to indicate that it is already completed. Pins that are Gold/Green (they flash) indicate missions that are new and can be taken. (I've also unlocked a couple secret/bonus missions that I'll get to when the time is right.) But what you want to see is at the bottom of the screenshot. D'arci starts with 100 hit points (the curved bar beside the GPS), and every point of Constitution gives her +1HP. Health Packs give a fixed +50 per item. Stamina affects how long she can run. I started a new fresh game with D'arci having no Stamina, and she was able to sprint for 22 seconds before tiring and running out of Stamina. Here, have a quick and dirty video. Using the stats above, D'arci was able to sprint for 27.5 seconds. Now, (27.5-22)/22 = 0.25. Now, given that her Stamina is 26, I can make the educated guess that the Stamina 'value' is a % increase to her running time from a base of 22 seconds. Based on this trend, of every 'powerup' being a single percentage point increase, I can conclude that every point of strength allows Darci to deal more damage with her Melee attacks (as the manual states that Strength = Melee damage), while every point in Reflexes affects how fast D'arci can lock on with ranged weapons (how soon the green crosshatches turn to red). The concept that powerups are percentage increases over some base value also seems like a simple thing to program in, which would allow for D'arci's stats to improve on the fly during a mission. Does this answer your question? (btw, putting this post in the OP as it's a relevant question)
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| # ? Jan 25, 2013 02:16 |
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Roper McIntyre D.O.B: 01/01/44 Current Address: None Known Associates: None Previous Conviction: Assault, Deception, Breaking and Entering, Impersonating a Police Officer, Resisting Arrest. Multiple charges for Firearms offences, Vagrancy and Drunkenness. Subject is ex-military and a former informant for the UCPD. Psychiatric reports indicate paranoia. He sees himself as some form of vigilante. The subject is extremely dangerous, and should not be approached without backup – even when subject is unarmed
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| # ? Jan 27, 2013 03:52 |
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Oh how I love that park and all of its wonderful people. And Roper. Dude just looks like he came from an rear end-kicking, and I imagine the punch-line is "You should see the other guy!" The other guy is probably dead.
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| # ? Jan 27, 2013 10:51 |
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Today's update has been sidelined by the computer I work on being hit by the UKASH Ransomware. Instead, have the only prepped update I have, finishing off the Driving and Combat Challenges:
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| # ? Jan 30, 2013 01:02 |
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Aw man, I wish you luck in getting that virus problem sorted. When I got something like that a few years back I was fortunate to have a second old computer so I was able to look up online how to defeat it, download some software and copy it over with a USB stick. Anyway, as for the videos... Those handbrake turns really are pretty sweet! It seems that many of the game mechanics are a bit clunky, but I think that's forgiveable since it's got so many game mechanics. Driving, Tomb Raider style movement (with extra features like ziplines), hand-to-hand combat, arresting and searching people, and shoot-em-up combat (though we've hardly seen that yet). Oh and LEAVES. Can't forget about that leaf physics and other bits of trash. It practically looks like a tech demo for Nvidia Physx! Does the game force you to do much driving, or can you run around 95% of the game and just drive for one or two missions like the first one which asks you to drop off a car at the police station? TheLastRoboKy posted:Oh how I love that park and all of its wonderful people. That ball conversation was brilliant.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2013 02:37 |
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The virus problem has been resolved. I'm int he process of processing the next couple updates as I type (yay for multiple computers!). The game doesn't force much in the way of driving around, but I'll try to do more and more of it as the game's levels get bigger, and more time is spent running from point A to point B. There are a couple driving-themed levels later on though, and they can get pretty nasty.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2013 02:47 |
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I tried playing this earlier this week but had to stop, because of one of my HDD's died, so I'm really glad you're doing this and hopefully you won't be troubled by more computer issues.
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| # ? Jan 31, 2013 23:07 |
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Hey, I wanted to say I like your videos so far. The subtitled ones move a bit fast to focus on the action and the text, but that might just be me. This game is really neat so far, and feel like you guys are doing a good job showing it off, so keep up the good work!
Danger-Pumpkin fucked around with this message at Feb 9, 2013 around 22:30 |
| # ? Feb 2, 2013 19:02 |
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| # ? Feb 2, 2013 20:28 |
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Not sure if it's been said, but this is a weird rear end game. Also I think the guy giving you these missions is a bit homicidal.
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| # ? Feb 5, 2013 14:55 |
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Brainamp posted:Not sure if it's been said, but this is a weird rear end game. Also I think the guy giving you these missions is a bit homicidal. You have seen NOTHING yet.  *Mission 06 – Arms Breaker: YouTube | Polsy
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| # ? Feb 5, 2013 16:58 |
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Will you show off what happens if you start breaking the law and killing civilians? Not sure if you have to arrest them for it to count the way I'm thinking, but I do recall that outright murder will cause something to happen.
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| # ? Feb 7, 2013 00:05 |
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Eventually, yes.
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| # ? Feb 7, 2013 00:09 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 15:37 |
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Quickly catched up to the last videos. Nicely done, berryjon: Urban Chaos is a game that I think is underrated. It does have some quirks with certain elements of the engine, with one specific that I think only shows up on one level, but I still like it. It's nice to see a proper LP of this.
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| # ? Feb 7, 2013 22:27 |
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