Urban Chaos: Riot Response

Our hero, with a standard issue Featureless Protagonist helmet.

An unnamed American city has been turned into a warzone by crazy terrorists known as the Burners. You play Nick Mason, ace of the T-Zero Riot Response unit, which was formed to fight terrorists and take the city back.

Urban Chaos is a First-Person Shooter made by Rocksteady (before they hit it big with Batman: Arkham Asylum) and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. It is generally well-received, having simple and enjoyable gameplay, moderate difficulty, expansive content and strong multi-player. The few strikes against it could be attributed to sub-par graphics, rather linear levels and very campy dialogue, although Your Mileage May Vary on that last one.

This doesn't come anywhere near the level of the more well-known shooters like Halo, or even Killzone, but this one stands on its own by doing away with realism and story, instead giving you a ton of weapons and hordes of enemies to use them on. Think of it as stress-release.

Don't confuse this game with 1999 3rd person shooter Urban Chaos (even though Eidos published both).

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Tropes used in Urban Chaos: Riot Response include:

• Arc Words: If you pay attention, you'll find the logo of Shift-It everywhere in the game, this is because they're the Burners.
• Badass Normal/ One-Man Army: Nick Mason
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: The Burners appear to be this.
• Boom! Headshot!
  • Comes with the possibility of exploding heads. The possibility becomes one-hundred percent when you upgrade all weapons.
  • Brief yet fabulous fountains of blood are also a possibility.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The Minigun unlock happens once you've squeezed everything out of the single player. Which means you've got the biggest gun in the game, and nothing left to shoot.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Most of the Burners are brainwashed Shift-It employees.
• The Call Twinks You
• Chainsaw Good: Halfway through the game, Burners begin to wield electric circular saws. You can use them. Their usefulness is debatable, however.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Nick Mason. All of his equipment is what makes him better then the regular cops. Subverted in the last level. The Burners think this trope is true and ambush Nick while off duty. He then grabs some weapons and a shield off the Burners and murders their leader.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Most Burners.
• Darker and Edgier: In comparison to other FPS' of the time.
  • Lighter and Softer: You get a HAPPY ENDING!!
• Dead Line News: One of the mission is to prevent this from happening. The newscaster has giving an interview with the Burners when they flipped out and took her hostage.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Averted, you're like the setting's Galm One, except the enemy has no one skilled enough or sane enough to match up to you.
  • One newscaster lambasts T-ZERO's actions during the course of the game. Justified - T-ZERO's very existence is extremely controversial, not to mention its actions (total war against criminal hotspots, blowing up an abandoned city block with attack choppers to destroy a Burner stronghold, and so on.) Only after you save the city from total destruction after they get their hands on a nuclear weapon does he begin to respect you.
• Escort Mission: Not as bad as most examples as everyone you escort has the good sense to stay behind you and wait until you clear an area before moving on. Some of them are even useful to you: the medics can heal you, the firemen can open locked doors (and defend themselves if an enemy gets too close) and the policemen can provide fire support.
• Gatling Good: The last unlockable gives you access to the minigun that you normally could only use on the helicopter segments.
• Guns Akimbo: The machine pistols.
• Heroic Mime: Mason.
• Hostage Situation: Five times, a Burner leader will take someone hostage. You must shoot the Burner while they're reloading. It often ends in a gruesome, satisfying death for the Burner.
• Improvised Weapon: Early Burner melee weapons, and their shields later on.
• It's Up to You: Justifed. Most of the Characters that aren't trying to stab, chop, burn or shoot you are civilians, firemen or paramedics. People that don't have training for combat situations. Not to say that the regular cops can't hold their own, it's just that you have all the fancy training, equipment, and reckless disregard for your own life.
• Karmic Death: The first boss, Estevez, dies after killing two cops and taking another hostage, by way of being shot in the face repeatedly. HE SURVIVES THAT, only to be burned horribly alive. The last boss dies after you shove him into a meat-packing factory, where he is impaled by a hook (also still alive) and ground alive. You can hear everything.
  • Also when the newscaster is taken hostage, when you take down the hostage taker she then throws in a TV into the tub he landed in electrocuting him. She then gives a live broadcast with the electrocution taking place in the background.
• Kent Brockman News
• Kick the Dog: All of the Burners On-and-Off screen actions. The worst one was watching a fireman that they were shooting repeatably, die as the paramedic was trying to save him.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Perhaps a little too well.
  • Oh, no. It gets HARDER to use later on. You often have burners with dual Uzis that will severely damage you if you lower your shield for three seconds, or they spawn behind you.
    • It's still a comparative cakewalk with the shield up, just walk up to the enemy and bash them for a One-Hit Kill.
      • Until they start flanking you.
• More Dakka: Among the weapons you can wield are an assault rifle, a pair of machine pistols, a automatic shotgun, and even a minigun.
• Non-Lethal KO: Using the taser to incapacitate... unless you use it for too long.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: The second firearm you get, and a common weapon in the Burners until late games.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential
• Western Terrorists: The Burners really aren't a violent, anarchistic gang.
  • They're not?!
    • Far worse, mah boi. THEY'RE AN ANTI-AMERICAN MILITIA.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The city location is never told. However from the weather and the fact the police uniforms say CPD it could be Chicago. If the C doesn't stand for City that is.
• White Gang-Bangers: The Burners are White and Mexican.
• With This Herring: In response to the Ax Crazy maniacs running around the city, you're given a pistol. Subverted in that it's highly publicized to be top-of-the-line and it lives up to its (in-game) hype.
  • Not to mention you get several weapons near-instantaneously right after, and the pistol is one of the best weapons you can use in game.