Release your inner “badass” with Platinum games latest title, Anarchy Reigns. This title is a third person brawler that features Jack Cayman from their previous Wii title “Madworld” along with a bevy of off the wall characters in this post apocalyptic setting overrun by goons, ninjas, robot drones, crazy “Death Proof” esque cars, mutants and tons more.
STORY
The campaign is split into two different parts referred to as Black Side and White Side. In the Black Side you control Jack in his quest to find Maximilian for his daughter who paid for you to retrieve him. In the White Side you control Leo a BPS soldier who is sent to retrieve his mentor, the aforementioned Maximilian. In a way these two stories intersect with one another whilst trying to make the entire storyline seem relevant. Unfortunately it doesn’t. In a game where the combat doesn’t take itself to seriously the plot sure tries…sort of. For the most part, I was just confused. It jumps from place to place, introducing several characters without really ever explaining their purpose. The story is so irrelevant that it might as well not have been included. The only thing it does is it gets you adjusted to the combat and features a few fun modes of play that cannot be experienced online. Nevertheless, it’s a boring and uninspired single player romp that is only worth playing through once just to unlock all of the extra characters.
GRAPHICS
This section is going to be very short and sweet…they suck. There are better looking games on the SEGA Dreamcast and that says a lot. The characters and their special effects seem to be where all the graphical attention went because the level design is atrocious. I thought that I would never ever dislike grey as much as I did before I played this title and boy was I proven wrong.
AUDIO
This department fires on all cylinders with some great sound effects for the brutal and visceral combat accompanied by an awesome soundtrack that is somewhere along the lines of House Rap and Drum & Bass. It’s pretty cool. It reminds me very much of “Madworld” especially since this game is the spiritual successor to it. At any rate, you’ll be remembering several tunes every time you think of the game.
GAMEPLAY
Ahhh…the most important piece of any game. Thankfully this game make a pretty good effort in delivering a satisfying combat system. While there isn’t any advancement in the combat that you have there is a hint of depth along with the delivery in how you handle encounters and dealing damage. Everything is fun since you feel like a massive powerhouse and every punch and kick is delivered with such force, often at times either decapitation or explosion. It’s just satisfying.
REPLAYABILITY
Here is where the central focus of the game obviously went into. There are so many modes with so many options of how to play that this is where the majority of the time should be spent. But will you is the question. I more than likely won’t touch it often. It is interesting the first few matches and then frustration builds as you get swarmed with mass amounts of chaos, static camera angles deterring you from fighting your opponents, kill stealing and all other sorts of dumb things that could happen that are more than likely out of your control. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing quite like it and it still has it’s charm. Unfortunately, i’m unsure of how long that will last.
With a less than stellar single player campaign, very poor graphics and somewhat lackluster replayabilty Anarchy reigns is a game that could easily be passed up. The main attraction to this game is that the price point in the US is $29.99 which is a steal. Plus, there aren’t many games with as much charisma as this one. But, it is a venture that some will not be willing to take.
6.5/10