Introduction
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 |
| Mission 00 – Physical Training, Combat Tutorial, Driving Bronze, Driving Bronze Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 01 – RTA | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 01a – RTA Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 02 – The Jump | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 02a – The Jump Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 03 – Gun Hunt | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 03a – Gun Hunt Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 04 – Trouble in the Park | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 04a – Trouble in the Park Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 00 - Driving Silver and Gold, Combat Silver and Gold | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 05 – Gate Crasher | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 05a – Gate Crasher Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 06 – Arms Breaker | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 06a – Arms Breaker Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 07 – Media Trouble | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 07a – Media Trouble Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 08 – Urban Shakedown | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 09 – Auto Destruct | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 09a – Auto Destruct Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Bonus Mission 01 – Nitro Car | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 10 – Grim Gardens | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 10a – Grim Gardens Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 11 – Semtex | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 11a – Semtex Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 12 – Cop Killers | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 12a – Cop Killers Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 13 – Southside Offensive | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 13a – Southside Offensive | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 14 – Psycho Park | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 13a – Psycho Park Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 15 – The Fallen | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 15a – The Fallen Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 16 – Stern Revenge | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 16a – Stern Revenge Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 17 – Transmission Terminated | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 17a – Transmission Terminated Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 18 – Estate of Emergency | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 18a – Estate of Emergency Exploration | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 19 – Sneak, Seek and Seize | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 20 - Target UC | YouTube | Polsy |
| Bonus Mission 02 - Rat Catch | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 21: - Headline Hostage | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 22 - Insane Assault | YouTube | Polsy |
| Mission 23 - Day of Reckoning | YouTube | Polsy |
| Bonus Mission 03 - Assassin | YouTube | Polsy |
| Demo Level and Developer's Room | YouTube | Polsy |
| Death Montage | 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.