RIOT: CIVIL UNREST

Riot is just such a simple game as its audiovisual processing. Nothing against pixelart, though today's indie developers are approaching it in every third game. But in short, when you look at the screen, you suspect that you should not expect too much. It doesn't look so bad, if you don't use zoom when everything falls apart into a discordant color mass, but you just realize that you have a smaller project in front of you that doesn't appeal to the masses. Well, not the masses of the players, because otherwise you will surely get the humming crowd against which the police forces stand. And that's what it is all about.

The gaming offer itself is rich at first glance. Global mode with increasingly demanding missions, a series of mini campaigns that map riots in Greece, Egypt, Italy and Spain - that's a nice foundation. And then there's versus 2-4 players who can stand against each other in the teams, then the editor, yet in the beta version with Steam Workshop support and even more specific fashion like the spectator where you just watch the events passively. Interesting is the journalism mode, where you are an individual from the crowd and your job is to shoot the best images possible to get the most money for them. Just a pity that is not properly tightened. But this is peculiar to the entire game offer.

Anyway, Riot offers a lot, but when you play, you'll find that it's just a delusion and in fact your activities and options are limited and focus on just a few things. In short, the game will offer you some kind of conflict that you can experience as rebels or cops, and a single task on a single screen in every mission awaits you. Either you have to keep your position for a while, or drive people out of some area, or push it to the edge of the screen. Nothing more and nothing less. As a rule, about 5 minutes are sufficient for such a task, and the next one in the next mission has a very similar course. So you soon get tired of it.

The reason for staying on for a while is the possibilities of one and the other side that slightly change the course of missions. You control the rebels in several groups, and the frequency depends mainly on what equipment you chose before the event. As a rule, the crowd can choose a gear that will provide better durability and will be filled with flags. However, the items you place in four slots are key. It can be a means of causing violence, but it can also add to the rebels. So you can pack eggs, stones, Molotov cocktails, firecrackers and bombs that explicitly provoke, but also hurt and sometimes even kill cops. Or prefer a megaphone to better coordinate the rebels, take advantage of the social networking capabilities to get reinforcements, get "love" and moral support for photos showing police brutality.

In the field, in addition to guiding the movement of rebel groups, you also determine whether they behave passively and raise their bare hands, or sit down on the ground, or appear aggressive and attack. What matters here is what you prefer, because it can pay off, but also help out in the final settlement.

Of course, police components are better equipped. However, they do not use the heaviest caliber weapons. The standard is batons, shields, smoke boxes, stun guns, which have tactical, offensive and ballistic divisions. Sometimes they are accompanied by cars that water rapists with water. Usually, you armor your cops with your armor before the conflict, and in this case, you have to pay for all the benefits with your budget. Police folders have more interesting options than rebels, although they are less, but you can give them more instructions and tactics better. In addition to stun guns and support, you can arrest, use the aforementioned watering cars, rearrange units, and choose different formations that fit in different situations. Even cops can choose aggressive or moderate access.

It should be noted that the rebels are not always good and unjustly repressed. Sometimes it is a noble rebellion against a dictatorship, sometimes a vandal and extremist exorcism in which police intervention is justified. Anyway, you should accomplish your goal in minutes. Success is expressed by a timekeeper that moves to one side or the other depending on who is advancing in the field.

Sometimes the final rating will surprise you, because even the apparent winner of the conflict may eventually be considered a loser. Indeed, both military and political results are taken into account. Each party gains points for both components, sometimes negative numbers, and the total sum determines the final winner. So if, for example, you keep your position with the rebels just because you have used the so-called holy bomb that has killed the cops, you have accomplished the task, but bloodshed will get you into very negative numbers. And you can also read about it in the newspapers that complement the final evaluation.

Riot is definitely the original title, but it is a pity that the creators did not go deeper and did not expand gameplay. The possibilities of both sides are interesting, but the conflicts can be more divorced. It would also like to better interact with the characters under the control of the player. He is only guiding them on a continuous basis, rather than actively controlling them, and the choices are considerably curtailed. For those interested in the game, it is simply not enough, although the theme is so appealing.