I was listening to a podcast yesterday and a question was asked about games other people hated but the podcaster’s thought were good. The game State of Emergency was brought up and was dismissed by all there. This is not the first time that game had been given the lemon face treatment. The funny thing is, I don’t understand why. This game for me falls under a couple of categories. 1) It is a game that I not only love, but still whip out every other moon for some mindless fun, and 2) it has the distinction of being the game that made me want to dive into the Playstation pool. No joke.
 
Many moons ago, I was still rocking the Sega Genesis I had bought myself that was used in a many a Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat/Joe Montana’s Sports Talk Football/NBA Live free for alls with a then good friend of mine(I was not good at any of them save SF II*). That’s another post, though. One summer (either ’01 or ’02), my brother and nephew came to visit and had a Playstation 2 and a couple of games with them. Couldn’t tell you what all they had, either. I can tell you that the game we spent much time playing was State of Emergency. It kind of went like this. After we set it up, this was the game I remember being put in. My nephew (who was like 5-6 at the time), basically demoed the game in true 5-6 year old fashion. Then my brother (who is older than I)  hopped on and played once before giving the stick to me. I will add that he had a fairly decent high score when he came off of it. So I tried my hand in it and did ok on it. I checked out how Rockstar the game was and was digging it. My brother’s a fan of the GTA series, which is probably why he picked it up. The thing that had gotten me was that even in the “story mode”, it was just fun to run around causing havoc drawing attention to your self (in true GTA like fashion). It felt like a game of Smash TV, especially with the announcer guy that would chime in after a while in certain modes. And yes, there was a part of me that wanted to beat whatever might brother’s score was that couldn’t beat first play through. This brings me to the rest of the story.

So my brother leaves the PS2 over at the house, but I played it and SoE probably one or two more times that night, still not beating whatever score he had. The next day I had gone to work and had a particularly not so good day. I came home and for some reason, fired up the PS2. I found myself just roaming around causing confusion and racking up a pretty high score (I think almost doubling my brother’s) in the process. Whatever mood I was in had improved my skills, it seemed. So when my brother and nephew come over later, I show them the score and, of course, my brother doesn’t believe it. So we play and I still had a pretty damn good streak going because I ended up having the highest score out of the three of us. Needless to say, I felt good about it. My brother…not so much. We ended up playing a couple of other games on the system, which I enjoyed, but not as much as SoE. So much that as soon as I had enough money to pick up a system and a game, I did so. And that game became the one that I put in if I wanted to just let off some steam. Don’t know what it says about me, but I can’t think of too many times I’ve had as much fun as I did with that game. Ok, Just Cause 2 is almost a close second, but you get what I’m saying.

So I don’t get what folks are saying about how bad the game is. Yes, it was flawed. Yes, it didn’t have fully destructible buildings (which would have made it more awesome) or much of a plot, but it had character, in my opinion. The gameplay might have gotten old for some, fine. All I’m saying is that the game wasn’t so bad and still isn’t, really. To me.

And I guess that’s all that matters.


* - Why the hate for Dee Jay?

I was listening to a podcast yesterday and a question was asked about games other people hated but the podcaster’s thought were good. The game State of Emergency was brought up and was dismissed by all there. This is not the first time that game had been given the lemon face treatment. The funny thing is, I don’t understand why. This game for me falls under a couple of categories. 1) It is a game that I not only love, but still whip out every other moon for some mindless fun, and 2) it has the distinction of being the game that made me want to dive into the Playstation pool. No joke.
 
Many moons ago, I was still rocking the Sega Genesis I had bought myself that was used in a many a Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat/Joe Montana’s Sports Talk Football/NBA Live free for alls with a then good friend of mine(I was not good at any of them save SF II*). That’s another post, though. One summer (either ’01 or ’02), my brother and nephew came to visit and had a Playstation 2 and a couple of games with them. Couldn’t tell you what all they had, either. I can tell you that the game we spent much time playing was State of Emergency. It kind of went like this. After we set it up, this was the game I remember being put in. My nephew (who was like 5-6 at the time), basically demoed the game in true 5-6 year old fashion. Then my brother (who is older than I)  hopped on and played once before giving the stick to me. I will add that he had a fairly decent high score when he came off of it. So I tried my hand in it and did ok on it. I checked out how Rockstar the game was and was digging it. My brother’s a fan of the GTA series, which is probably why he picked it up. The thing that had gotten me was that even in the “story mode”, it was just fun to run around causing havoc drawing attention to your self (in true GTA like fashion). It felt like a game of Smash TV, especially with the announcer guy that would chime in after a while in certain modes. And yes, there was a part of me that wanted to beat whatever might brother’s score was that couldn’t beat first play through. This brings me to the rest of the story.

So my brother leaves the PS2 over at the house, but I played it and SoE probably one or two more times that night, still not beating whatever score he had. The next day I had gone to work and had a particularly not so good day. I came home and for some reason, fired up the PS2. I found myself just roaming around causing confusion and racking up a pretty high score (I think almost doubling my brother’s) in the process. Whatever mood I was in had improved my skills, it seemed. So when my brother and nephew come over later, I show them the score and, of course, my brother doesn’t believe it. So we play and I still had a pretty damn good streak going because I ended up having the highest score out of the three of us. Needless to say, I felt good about it. My brother…not so much. We ended up playing a couple of other games on the system, which I enjoyed, but not as much as SoE. So much that as soon as I had enough money to pick up a system and a game, I did so. And that game became the one that I put in if I wanted to just let off some steam. Don’t know what it says about me, but I can’t think of too many times I’ve had as much fun as I did with that game. Ok, Just Cause 2 is almost a close second, but you get what I’m saying.

So I don’t get what folks are saying about how bad the game is. Yes, it was flawed. Yes, it didn’t have fully destructible buildings (which would have made it more awesome) or much of a plot, but it had character, in my opinion. The gameplay might have gotten old for some, fine. All I’m saying is that the game wasn’t so bad and still isn’t, really. To me.

And I guess that’s all that matters.


* - Why the hate for Dee Jay?