Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Disastrous"

I knew Urban Champion existed when I first owned a Nintendo Entertainment System. As a kid, I could have kicked and screamed and cried my eyes out at my local Sears to get my dad to pay the $50 for it, but I didn't. It's like going into a candy store and feasting your eyes on a cherry-flavored Snickers bar (figuratively speaking--as no such candy bar exists)--you know it's there, and it looks enticing, but you stop short of buying it because you have this funny feeling that it'll taste like chocolate-flavored Pepto Bismol. And as such, Urban Champion ends up leaving a bad taste in your cerebral cortex.

I won't go so far as calling this game a poor man's Street Fighter because this game doesn't deserve even this pleasant a demerit. Basically, it's a one-on-one brawler that reminisces to the good old days of throwing your fists and being the baddest kid on the block. You'll fight opponents who look eerily similar to one another--only with different colored hair. Urban Champion is more an exercise of reflexes than it is a simple button-mashing fist party that can describe better, more superior games. You'll mostly do punching and low-blows--no kicks. The goal of the game is to defeat your opponent by forcing him to the other end of the screen (which often takes up to two or three of them) finding a pot hole and knocking him into it. Oh, and lest we forget, you will have to contend with other obstacles--like getting pots thrown over your head from angry folks and getting busted by two-bit cops that drive on by making sure you're not causing any trouble, of course. Two-player competitive play exists, so you and a friend can both laugh at how stupid the game looks.

As an 8-bit Nintendo game, I understand the shortcomings, but a game can only be so bad that it actually hurts your eyes to play it. The only thing going for it is its bargain price of only 400 or so points. But spending even that small an amount is a considerable waste, for the same rate can get you better games like Punch Out. Nintendo rarely makes bad games -- Urban Champion, I'm sorry to say, is the worst game they've made on this or any other system.