RIOT: Civil Unrest was released on February 6th, 2019. It was developed by IVP Productions and then published by Merge Games Ltd. The game will run you $19.99.
RIOT: Civil Unrest is a 2D styled real-time strategy game with 3D effects. The game allows the player to fill the role of the Police, or the rioting groups. The settings are based on actual riots from around Europe, which would lead one to believe there would be a significant meaning to the game.
RIOT: Story Unrest
The game doesn’t really have a story. It has a story mode. You do a few levels on different maps. But this game makes no attempt to say anything. There are some messages that pop up on screen during gameplay, but these only alert you to changing conditions, rather than working as a narrative device.
This game really is Civil Unrest. It’s just chaos. There is no purpose, no substance, nothing. Just nothing. It has a foundation of something great but makes absolutely no attempt to delivered on anything. The developers even tell the player if they want to know what these riots were about, they should look it up themselves.
Civil Game Modes
Obviously, we already discussed the story mode above. The second game mode is Global. The best game mode, and after some time, even slightly fun, but quickly boring. You slowly go through various levels in each country, unlocking new equipment and new protesters. RIOTÂ offers a variety of different objectives, but matches are often far too long and begin to drag on.
RIOT also has a couch co-op mode which allows up to four players to experience this game together, two on each side. It’s just confusing for everyone. Like I said before, this game offers no help in learning how to play. So, everyone just sort of stands around using abilities randomly until the timer runs out, and then the point total decides who wins. It is a rather bad time for every involved.
Rioting Begins Due to Bad Game Play
The game play also gives you no reason to play. The game lacks a tutorial. On top of that, there are no settings options for adjusting the width of your screen. And it is set at a size that cuts off plenty of information. Not only does it not teach you how to play, but the bubbles that explain what your abilities do are cutoff due this. The game is practically unplayable unless you both adjust your own TV settings and watch a few videos on YouTube that explain what everything does.
That’s ridiculous. For twenty dollars, I expect a game to be playable on my screen and explain how to play if not intuitive. These very two, very simple requirements are forgotten without a second thought. This isn’t only a bad game, it’s a bad port too.
On top of all that, the controls aren’t good either. swapping between groups is tedious and cluttered. Movement is slow, and unresponsive. Your groups will get stuck randomly, even spawning in places that won’t let you move them. You are stuck with nothing but the ability to fight the game to do what you want it to. It also suffers from dumb AI.
Plus, it’s usually boring. Not much happens, and what does happen is so cluttered and difficult to tell what exactly, even with on screen script telling you. While it is neat that fighting isn’t the only strategy to win, it makes it so unbelievably hard for you to do anything, even if you somehow learn how to play, that it’s pointless. Every time that I have won, I have had little idea as to why.
Propaganda
The artwork is alright. It uses 3D models in a 2D style to invoke a retro feel with more realistic effects, which is cool. The problem comes from how everything blends together. It creates even more chaos, as you cannot tell what is going on. It is difficult to tell why the game was even made. If it was meant to be pure chaos, only giving the player a feeling of control, then that’s dumb, but if it was attempting to be a fun experience? That is frightening.
Uninteresting Tunes
While the menu music is good, the rest of the game is drowned out by the same track of a group yelling, like a group of rioting people would sound. It is realistic, but annoying. But it gets old fast and gave me quite a headache.
It adds little to the game, and detracts even more from the overall experience, Sometimes the audio even cuts of randomly, and then pops back up minutes later. This provides evidence that this is either an unpolished port, or a really unpolished game in general.
The Verdict
Do not get this game. You will regret the purchase near instantly. The game is broken, unpolished, cluttered, and just not fun. RIOT: Civil Unrest will inevitably be a free game of the month at some point. Pick it up then if you want, try it and let me know if you runs the same for you. But other than that, I just wouldn’t touch this game.
If you found a small, gold nugget in here, or you just want to see if it’s as bad as I say, then feel free to pick it up. But be warned. This game made me want to throw a riot in frustration.
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- Review Summary
RIOT: Civil Unrest offers the player nothing but an irritating $20 experience. It’s a bad port of a below average game,
