Developed by Lapovich
Ported/Published by Sometimes You
Released for Xbox One (8/1/2018)
Also on Linux/Mac/PC/PS4/Switch
Developed by Lapovich and originally released for PC back in March 2017, State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem received a port to the Xbox One in August 2018 thanks to Sometimes You. State of Anarchy is a basic twin-stick shooter featuring graphics made to look like they were drawn out on paper and sound effects all generated by a human.
State of Anarchy features 48 levels to play through, with a few different objectives for a little variety. Most stages will have you navigate an overworld map where you'll need to make your way to a bank which is marked by an arrow. Once there you'll need to head inside and, after a loading screen, you'll need to defeat the bank boss, an enemy in the center of the bank that has a health bar. These banks bosses are largely the same other than a different bullet-pattern, they all just sit in the middle of the room firing off. Other stages will have you fighting against alien invaders, sometimes chasing after UFOs on Earth and other levels have you flying a ship in outer space battling the aliens. The variety sounds greater than it really is, as every stage boils down to shooting enemies while dodging stuff and you'll do these same types of missions ad naseum. Upon completing a stage, you'll receive a new weapon which will replace whichever main or secondary weapon you currently hold.
The controls are simple enough: move with the left stick and aim with the right. The secondary weapon is mapped to LB, which can be a bit awkward in the heat of a battle and would have worked much better if mapped to one of the triggers, a face button or even the right bumper. The X button activates rage mode, which increases your speed and fire-rate for a limited time once the corresponding gauge is full. Vehicles can be entered on the Earth levels, with acceleration and brake mapped out to the triggers. The control scheme works well enough, but as already stated the secondary weapon fire could have been mapped better. There is no option to configure the controls anywhere in the menus. The options menu allows you to adjust the sound, music and language as well as select between normal and hard difficulties.
One of the drawing points of State of Anarchy is its unique visual design. The game attempts to look as if the action were hand-drawn on paper. It's a decent look that works well enough, though I found the animation a bit lacking on many of the character designs and the enemies themselves aren't particularly interesting. None of the city-scape or outer-space environments really have any kind of design that stands out, and everything feels like it could have just been randomly-generated. The sound design is another interesting aspect of State of Anarchy, featuring all human-generated sound effects. This is definitely a neat idea though I quickly found myself growing tired of the in-game sound and listened to my own soundtrack the majority of the time I spent with the game. While the music in the game is decent, featuring just some average rock-style music, it was definitely a missed opportunity for not having a human beat-box to provide the soundtrack, which would have really complemented the human-made sound effects and bumped the presentation up a notch.
I really like the concept of hand-drawn twin-stick action in State of Anarchy, but unfortunately in execution it's about as basic and generic of a twin-stick shooter as you could possibly get. There's a severe lack of variety to the gameplay and the action quickly grows monotonous after the first few cycles of levels. Sure, there are 48 levels but you do the same thing in all of them which isn't a good thing in this case. The weapons aren't really that great and there's no option to select which weapon to use on each stage, you can only use the predesignated weapon for that particular stage. Upon completing all 48 stages you do unlock the new game + mode which features a higher difficulty level, but I can't fathom anybody wanting to come back for more if they manage to finish it once. A survival mode would have went a long way here, or any alternative game mode to help with the grind of getting to level 90 (completionists beware: the achievement for reaching level 90 is a snorefest!). If you're a fan of twin-stick shooters, I'd advise you to skip this one and spend your time on one of the better offerings out there.
Final Verdict: State of Anarchy delivers a very basic twin-stick shooter experience. While the concept is cool and the game isn't downright terrible, there are many better twin-stick shooters more worthy of your time.
Purchase Links:
Buy State of Anarchy - Microsoft Store
Related Links:
Twin-Stick Shooters - Xbox Overview
Lapovich Games - Twitter
Sometimes You - Official Site
State of Anarchy - GameFAQs
State of Anarchy - True Achievements
State of Anarchy - Xbox Achievements
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