In the real world, people live in fear. We live in fear of an unseen enemy that doesn't just live across the sea, but in our very neighborhoods. An enemy that hates us and wants to kill our friends and families over a dispute that very few understand and jealousy of our beloved American way. As a people, we live in fear of our neighbors, of the teenagers on the street, and of our fellow passengers at the airport. We lock our car doors, we hold our loved one's hand tight, and we live in suspicion of our coworkers and neighbors, lest they be part of the problem and not the solution. In our terrified society, the local news serves not as a source of information, but as a tool to control the population, disseminating distrust and fear through shocking corporate-sponsored headlines.

Whether or not this is how we will live our lives is up to you, but this is the world of Urban Chaos: Riot Response, the latest from Rocksteady Studios and Eidos. The themes and presentation in this eye-opening video game, at the very least, deserve some analysis. You're visually assaulted with imagery of the American flag, gloriously ever-waving, alongside inspirational stills of the heroes we don't hear much from every day: the firemen, paramedics, and police officers. These secondary characters are all made use of in tangible and productive ways, so don't confuse this with an interactive homage to 9/11. The storyline isn't simply a feel-good inspirational affair, either. It's gritty. The language is powerful and oftentimes laden with streams of profanity, but there are scenes of heroism that may seem stripped from your television drama, which works extremely well in the context of the game. "Noooo! We lost Spazowski! He was one of the best. Spazowski!" You get the idea.


Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the game's presentation are the Channel 7 news reports that brief you on the progress of T-Zero, the corporate-sponsored paramilitary police force that Nick Mason is the star of. Shocking news is constantly breaking, with the Burner gang causing havoc in the streets and doing as good a job of terrorizing the population as Al Qaeda. They blow up government buildings, take hostages, and threaten to *expletive* this city any chance they get. Creating such a vile and reprehensible enemy as the Burners is a safe way out of tackling the more serious issues involved in today's real-life conflict, and basically dumbs down the battle to "good guys" versus "bad guys." One could argue, though, that the news media has done much of the same with its interpretation of the real-world conflict between America and the insurgency in Iraq, and Urban Chaos is an attempt at satirizing this close-minded outlook.