Could have been a good port of a great game.
The PC version of Urban Chaos was a great, solid game. It wasn't a classic or anything, but it was a lot of fun. While the PSX port of Urban Chaos still has a lot of fun that made the PC version so good, it also has a couple large issues that really destroy what could have been a good port of a great game.
The game is essentially an identical port of the PC version. You play as a female officer named D'arci. After a couple of training missions, your sent into the city streets and given a few objectives to complete each mission. One of the most interesting of these objectives is one mission where you have to talk a suicidal man out of jumping off of a building. The opening missions are very simple, fun and give you a good feel for the game. But as the missions go on, a deeper storyline starts to build and the game really starts to pick up.
The gameplay is the same, fun Beat-Em-Up style gameplay. You can choose to use your fists or an arsenal of about a dozen weapons including a baseball bat, assault rifle, and other standard issue third-person fighting game weapons. As the levels get harder and harder though, you'll find yourself using your fists less and less. The storyline still holds your attention and is definitely better that what most third-person fighting games have to offer. The over-the-top voice acting is great. It really gives the game a nice B-movie quality to it. Some dialogue is really funny. Some missions allow you to drive a Cop Car, which leads us to the first issue with the game.
Driving the Cop Car or any other kind of vehicle in this game is awful. The controls are way, way too touchy and trying to execute something as simple as turning a corner can send you crashing into a building, or swerving out of control. While the vehicles we're fun to drive in the PC version and helped get from point A to point B quicker, its best to just avoid driving as much as possible in the PSX port.
And now for the biggest issue: Graphics. The graphics are horrendous. Some of the worst I've ever seen in a late '90's PSX game. Your field-of-view is restricted to about 20 or 30 feet ahead of you, which makes it impossible to see entirely where you are throughout the entire game. Things come into sight very awkwardly as well. You could be running down street, when a streetlight suddenly appears about 20 feet in front of you. There's also obnoxious pop-up as well. The graphics are so bad that it really hurts the gameplay.
Overall, the graphics really affect the game pretty badly, but there still some fun to be found in this game. I would strongly suggest grabbing the PC version way over this one, but if you have a PSX, enjoy third-person fighting games, and are able to overlook some major graphical flaws, then grab Urban Chaos if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you.