The stroke of midnight signals the dawn of a new millennium. It also signals the beginning of a change in the appearance of Union City. There is a concerted effort by something malevolent. An underground cult is transforming the city into a landscape of crazies, punks and criminals with no respect.

But then Nostradamus prophesied that the new millennium would see the return of a king of terror. It seems to be coming true.

D’arci Stern is one tough rookie cop. But that is precisely what she needs to be - if she wants to survive.

Eidos Interactive has teamed with Mucky Foot to present Urban Chaos, a millennium-themed role playing action game that is wonderfully crafted and a lot of fun.

The attention paid to the details is what allows this program to stand out. Eidos has bragged about a revolutionary 3D engine which was instrumental in creating the city environment. It really shows. The sound effects are great, and on a dark rainy night, you will hear the raindrops splashing down into puddles. D’arci dashes through the puddle, leaving ripples, her reflection waves upon the water and then she leaves wet footprints on the sidewalk as she runs off on her current assignment.

Urban Chaos features 30 missions in real-time form. What at first seems to be random chaos soon starts to take on a noticeable trend that will reveal a sinister plot for the apocalypse.

You begin as D’arci, a rookie female police officer on the Union City force. She is fast with her feet and fists, and can perform any number of jumping and spinning kicks, jabs and flips on the perpetrators. Later, a special forces veteran enters the scene - Roper McIntyre, who is quick with his weapons, can’t really run from a fight but doesn’t want to. He has a wide variety of weapons at his disposal, but it may not be enough.

The object is to embark on missions, solving several objectives along the way to the main goal. The first mission is easy: Return an abandoned car back to the precinct for impounding, and arrest a mugger. You must be careful. Driving is simple, snagging the mugger isn’t. You will be involved in a street fight, and if you take it too far, you won’t be able to make the arrest. It is sort of hard to book a dead guy. Each character has a power line, and you need to get it low enough to knock the opponent out (or, at least disable them), but if you wipe it out, the foe is dead, complete with blood everywhere.

The second mission is to stop a jumper. Oh, and there’s a psycho street walker in the park, and a police car was stolen to help divert you from the main goal. By the way, approach the jumper in any way, and he takes a swan dive from the top of the tower. Sometimes brawn doesn’t do the job, and you have to use your brains.

In this regard, Urban Chaos is fairly typical of Eidos Interactive games. The action is there, the excitement is there, but in order to win out, you must be fast on the keyboard and be able to reason out solutions to the situations. Luck has little to do with it. You can’t stumble onto solutions. You must accomplish tasks in the right order. For example, you may wander down an alley, but you won’t find the suspect or the stolen property there until after you have interviewed someone on the street.

Controls for the game are very simple and this program is a breeze to jump into. Like most Eidos games, you must take the training mission to qualify for the main game. This training amounts to passing U.C. police courses for physical fitness, hand-to-hand combat and driving. Each exercise is timed, and you have to work hard to succeed.

One big drawback is that you must complete each mission in a sitting to advance to the next mission or level. You can’t save midway through a mission. Fail, even at the very end, and you have to start that mission from the beginning before you can move on. This can be a little tiresome and frustrating.

This program is rated Mature for animated blood, animated violence and strong language. This is a single person game, and does not support multiplayer action.

Installation: 5. This eats up a lot of hard drive space, thus it takes a long time. The install offers no diversions.

Gameplay: 8. This game moves smoothly around Union City. Though the game board does not seem that big, it is nicely mapped out.

Graphics: 8. This game looks great with three dimensional scenery and great attention to the details.

Sound: 7. The ambient sounds are amazing, the music appropriately pulls the program along. The only failing is in some stereotypical dialog and the profanity. Of course the latter is trying to convey the theme of the program, and does. These are tough cops, and they talk tough. If you have sensitive ears, you may want to pass on this program.

Concept: 8. It’s a game about chaos in the millennium. How it will fair thereafter is anyone’s guess, but the game is strong and the time frame seems to matter little.

Difficulty: 8. Sometimes you have to use your head, not just your fists, feet and weapon. The game starts easy, and each successive mission gets harder. Of course, each mission is multifaceted, giving several objectives.

Value: 8. This is a lot of fun, and in spite of the amount of hard drive space it consumes, it is well crafted.

Overall: 7.4