Fight moves kick above dull script

Urban Reign is a violent street-fighting game where rival gangs go to war in rundown, crime-ridden neighbourhoods. Winning, we are told, is all that matters. What Urban Reign isn't, though is clever, original or well put together.

We've seen it all before but done much better.

The main character, thug-for-hire Brad Hawk, walks around in a crocodile skin jacket and beats up the people he's told to.

Even that morose brawler The Punisher had some semblance of motive for his actions. By the time Hawk has laid out his sixth mob of gangsters you're no closer to understanding him, which relegates this game to the brainless button-masher variety.

The story seems like an afterthought, serving only to move the fighting to a new location. Foxy triad leader Shun Ying Lee gives Hawk his daily orders on who to whack - you can almost see the bored voice actor reclining in a sound booth reading from the stilted script.

It's a shame about the dull, repetitive storyline, because the fight moves are actually quite impressive. As well as punching and grappling with your enemies you get to perform some moves reminiscent of WWF wrestling tournaments. You'll run up walls, perform flips and sit on a gangbangers chest while you punch him senseless. Eventually you'll get to mash a broken bottle in someone's face.

The game's map implies a city as expansive as that of the Grand Theft Auto series but you'll never get to walk around in it, instead being dropped into fight locations such as the bar, the motel, the wreckers yard and the obligatory Chinatown setting. Cameos from stars of the Tekken fighting series inject none of its charisma.

Strangely, the first six or so missions of Urban Reign are incredibly easy after which they become stupendously difficult.

Hawk goes from felling his enemies with a single blow to not being able to get a punch in. The unevenness seems to have more to do with patchy game development than anything resembling plot progression. This one's a renter.