Features
- Tons of weapons, all of which can be taken from enemies
- Over two dozen brutal (and deadly) disarms to unlock
- Fifteen violent chapters
- Hard is the only difficulty setting... as it should be
- Four-channel surround sound
Dead to Rights is unabashedly a cop movie turned game. Presented in a seamless style (no level introductions or between-chapter rankings or menus), DTR uses elements from a variety of action films to tell its tale. You play Jack Slate, a cop seeking to avenge his father's murder. Framed for a crime he did not commit (isn't that how it always is), Slate must escape prison and wade through a sea of corruption and deceit to uncover the truth about his father's death. To clear his name, Slate must lay waste to hundreds of gun-toting enemies. The story is a bit obvious and everyone seems to be corrupt and out to get a piece of Slate. And that's just fine because it's exactly what you've seen in a dozen other cop flicks.
Gameplay
Dead to Rights is an action-packed shoot-em-up, sharing some (but actually few) similarities with Max Payne. At its core, DTR is a blast. A hoot. A barnburner. Hold enemies hostage, grab enemy weapons, dispatch killer clowns (really, there are clowns in this game), and use your dog, Shadow, to rip bad guys a new one. Throw in some mini-games, a slew of guns, some naughty language, a prison shower scene, and a helicopter chase and you've got yourself one heck of a game.
Double-fisted fury or The mechanics of murder
Unlike Max Payne, Dead to Rights uses an auto-targeting system. All you need to do is hold the right trigger to target the nearest enemy. The gun sight will turn red if it's a near-automatic shot, yellow if it's an iffy shot, and green if it's a shot that won't hit the target. You can quickly cycle through targets by pressing the trigger repeatedly. And there will be plenty of enemies to target, so get used to the function.
You can switch to manual targeting, but this is mainly when you want to fire at an object, like an oil drum. While it seems like auto-targeting makes for less of a challenge, it actually doesn't inhibit tough gameplay at all. In fact, the auto-targeting adds to the fun arcade feel of the game. And there are so many enemies, it would be impossible to take them all out manually targeting them.
Jack Slate has an adrenaline meter, which is used to let him block melee attacks and use his bullet-time dive. This meter refills automatically over time and honestly, you will only run out of adrenaline when you have to block a lot. You'll rarely (if ever) be at a loss for adrenaline. So what's the point of the meter if it's so readily available? Well, there's no point really. It's superficial and that's unfortunate, because there should be a limit to your slow-mo dives.
Killing folks is best done with guns and DTR has plenty of those. Uzis, AK-47s, shotguns, rocket launchers, and even flamethrowers aid you in your quest for vengeance. There are multiple versions of guns. You won't find just one shotgun in the game, but several different types, all with their own weaknesses and strengths. Every gun is enjoyable, some more than others, but none of them feel like an annoyance to carry. And that's important in a game like this. There's a great balance with the guns.
And every gun you use is also used by the enemy, so it's all fair and square. When you see a baddie barbequing folks, don't feel cheated. You'll be able to grab a flamethrower and roast a few marshmallows yourself. By the same token, know that finding a rocket launcher can only mean some fool will try to butter your toast with one sooner or later.
Can I borrow this gun?
Among the things keeping DTR from being a Payne clone are the disarms. There are over two-dozen ways to take a weapon away from an enemy and each one needs to be unlocked. Disarms can be set to happen randomly or you can enter specific button commands to perform the exact disarm you want. To do a disarm you need to approach an enemy empty-handed. Then just press the B button (if on random) and you'll snatch the gun away and then dispatch of the enemy. The disarms are awesome. If you don't love watching Jack Slate flip a guy in the air and juggle him with machinegun fire, then you have something wrong with you. Something very, very wrong.
You only need to use disarms when you are out of weapons, but you will probably find yourself holstering your pistols to watch another cool disarm move. One of the best is when Slate grabs a baddies pistol hand, twists it behind his back, and forces him to shoot himself in the back of the head. Yowch. It's not easy to unlock disarms. It seems relatively random and a new disarm is unlocked about once every six or seven disarms. One time through the entire game and I only had about seven disarms unlocked. Partly because I didn't do enough of them, but also because Namco clearly wants gamers to go through the game a second time to unlock even better disarms.
It's a shame that disarms aren't a bit more practical or necessary in DTR, because it's the best thing in the game. But going at a guy when you have no weapon in hand usually gets you shot a few times before you reach them. If the levels were designed to allow a bit more sneaking, you could catch your opponents unaware more often. It is worth it to take a few shots just to see a disarm. Heck, it's worth it to play the game a second time to unlock more disarms. Some of these moves will get you out of your seat hooting. You will call your buddy and say, "You won't believe what I just did!" Unless you don't have a buddy. Then you will grab your Tickle-Me Elmo from your bedroom and plop him down on the couch to show him your latest dope moves.
Humans make the best shields
The key to surviving Dead to Rights is using human shields as often as possible. When armed, approach a baddie and press B and you will take him hostage. Now he'll take the bullets from his buddies while you have a clear shot at them. The shield isn't some 360-degree protective dome, though. So if a guy comes up behind you, you'll be shot. This forces you to continually reposition the shield to avoid taking fire. Shields have a meter that appears beneath your health bar, letting you know how much health they have left. Once they are dead, they drop to the ground.
Moving with a hostage is very slow and is really meant for when you enter an area with a lot of close enemies. So if you find you still have a shield after the baddies are all dead, just press B and you will discard them. Sadly there are only a few different execution animations. It doesn't make sense to have so many disarms but only three or four ways to release a hostage. Namco needed to toss in a few more for variety.
Max Payne anyone?
What gets DTR compared to Max Payne so much is the bullet-time dive. By holding Y for about a second you can enter a slow-mo dive backwards, forwards, or sideways as long as you have enough adrenaline (and you will). While in slow-mo, the sounds distort and enemies move incredibly slow, giving you an opportunity to clear out a room quickly. Slow-mo, though, isn't very practical. You'll definitely use it, but not as much as you did in Payne. It's far better to take hostages. One of the best moves is doing a slow-mo into a crowd, taking out a couple of guys, and immediately taking a hostage when you land. Slow-mo looked cool in The Matrix and in Max Payne and that's no different here. Best of them is the slow-mo dive backwards as you unleash the fury of your double-fisted pistols. Where's the obligatory John Woo doves when you need them?
A dog named Shadow
You have access to Shadow the majority of the game. You will, briefly, take control of him for one bomb-sniffing mini-game, but otherwise he is only there to attack people. Shadow has his own adrenaline meter and can't be used constantly. But when you use Shadow, he instantly attacks and kills your targeted enemy, retrieving their weapon for you. This can be crucial when you are out of ammo and are pinned down by gunfire. However, Shadow would have been better left out of the game.
It's not that the idea of a police dog isn't cool, but Shadow is pretty lame in the game. It's an instant kill and it's easy to abuse the benefits of Shadow. But the bomb-sniffing mini-game is kind of cool. It's not that Shadow is a bad element to the game, but it seems like there could have been a lot more to him than there was. Why not allow Shadow to run out and grab you a canister on the floor or just have him run around and distract enemies? Instead all he does is kill. Not bad, but not great.
Fisticuffs
DTR's big failing comes with the hand-to-hand combat system. It's incredibly limited, with only a few available combos. You can punch, kick, grab, and throw your enemy and that's about it. You can't throw one enemy into another, which makes it that much tougher when fighting a group of baddies. Fighting actually takes a while to get the hang of, as simple as it is, because you will often be surrounded. Learning how to block and how to quickly switch targets is key.
Enemies possess the exact same moves as Slate, so the combat seems even more formulaic. A little bit of this fighting might have provided a nice respite from the non-stop gunplay found in the majority of the game, but there is just way too much hand-to-hand combat in this game. At least a fifth of the game involves fisticuffs and almost all of the bosses are taken on mano-y-mano. That's just too much fighting to be excused.
And it's not to say that the fighting is so tedious that it's unbearable, but it is a bit much. The third chapter, the prison level, has you fighting hand-to-hand for nearly an hour. In a ten-hour game, that's quite a lot for one section, especially so early on. It's like DTR teases you with gunplay and then immediately strips you of those wondrous weapons and forces you to learn to fight with your fists. It's such a long break, in fact, that you may actually have to re-teach yourself some of the gun-fighting techniques. That's terrible game balance and keeps DTR from being Max Payne-caliber.
Namco did a fantastic job in creating some great gunplay mechanics, but then seemed to run out of time when creating the fighting engine. A game like Streets of Rage can get by with only a couple of moves, because it is a very basic game. It's punch and run fun. But DTR is far too ambitious to survive on this philosophy. You can't have one area of the gameplay be top notch and the other half be sub-par, because it drains away some of the fun from the entire experience.
There is no path of least resistance
Those who do not like difficult games such as Gunvalkyrie will want to stay clear of Dead to Rights. The game is incredibly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding. Game time to complete all fifteen levels is about nine hours, but you will likely spend four or five hours failing to pass levels.
DTR offers something I just can't remember experiencing in an action game before. You need strategy to survive. In the earlier levels it's okay to run into situations, do slow-mo dives, grab hostages, and blow folks away. But some of the later levels just won't allow that. One level was so tough I had to finally plan out my moves step by step in order to survive. Not many action games force you to think, "Okay, I head to the right and the two guys with shotguns come out. I grab the closer one, kill his buddy, drag the hostage towards the corner and take out the first two snipers on the roof, using him as a shield. Then I go left, use the AK-47 on the guy hiding behind the wall, jump down and grab one of the two guys who arrive downstairs. I kill his buddy and hope the final sniper doesn't kill him before I can figure out which window he's shooting from."
To some, that's not what an action game should be. But it really does add a new twist. There's nothing in it like a Tom Clancy game forcing you to get strategic, but the gameplay itself demands strategy. Not every gamer will appreciate this, but those who love very challenging games will likely enjoy it as much as me.
Games used to be very difficult. And beating a tough game gave a huge amount of satisfaction. A lot of games nowadays make you feel like you're just going through the motions. Dead to Rights is tough. Very tough. But that's what makes it so enjoyable. Honestly, a game where you go around killing everyone in sight could get old after a few hours. There really isn't much of anything new offered after the first few hours of gameplay. It's the challenge that makes it compelling, that will get you to keep playing and make you go back for more.
What might really frustrate people is that the game seems so simple. You see people, you kill them. It couldn't be any more straightforward than that. And then you get your butt kicked. Some will get off the ground and say, "No way will a game kick me around like this." Others will just lie there and accept that the game is unfair and too hard. Like I said just a few paragraphs ago -- if you don't like a challenge, do not get this game.
The game within the game
Dead to Rights features several mini-games, which appear during various levels. Some of them are really good (like disarming bombs) and others are eye-rollingly bad (stripper dance). The second level of DTR is marred by a long and far-too-easy mini-game where you take control of a stripper, getting her to dance for the customers so Slate can sneak into the nightclub. This would have been cool except for the fact that the dancer is terribly modeled, so you don't even get to enjoy the dance and it's far too easy and drawn out. As is, the dance takes what feels like a half hour (though is probably about three minutes) and requires you to press corresponding buttons as they pass on the screen. It's a bad mini-game and worse so for being near the beginning of the game.
But other mini-games are pretty cool. When in prison you will get to lift weights, hit the speed bag, and arm wrestle. Each of these games has similar controls and is all about rhythmic button-tapping. They are pretty cool actually. The best of the mini-games, however, is when you must send your dog, Shadow, through a building sniffing for bombs. You take control of Shadow as he searches for a bomb. Once he finds the bomb, you'll need to disarm it. The bomb is presented as a maze. You have to guide an electrode through the maze without touching the sides. This would be easy if it weren't for the fact that the bomb is in 3D (meaning the maze wraps completely around the bomb) and that there's a limited amount of time. It's a fun distraction from the violence and can be a bit tricky to figure out. Certainly the best of the mini-games.
There aren't that many mini-games, but there is usually at least one in a level. Some levels have a lot more (you'll disarm quite a few bombs in DTR) than others, but it never feels like too much. Only the stripping mini-game stands out as a bad experience.
You're not the boss of me!
There are about a half-dozen bosses in Dead to Rights and the majority of them must be taken on in hand-to-hand combat. This will be really tough if you haven't mastered the fighting controls, especially blocking. The bosses are a nice mix and all of them are distinct. Some will have the same fighting style as you, but a few (we'll keep this a surprise), will have their own unique animations. Most of the bosses simply require that you beat them up, but a couple fall into the classical boss mold and have patterns and specific weaknesses that must be exploited. Until you figure those out you won't be able to beat these guys. But when you do, well, it's quite enjoyable finishing them off.
A few of the bosses do use guns and these one-on-one battles are some of the best in the game. There's no one to hold hostage and usually a limited amount of weapons at hand. You need to stay on the move, duck behind objects, and use your wits to defeat your enemy. Some of these victories have rather obvious endings, but that fits into the bad cop movie mold.
One of the final bosses (and I promise you will think you're at the last boss at least three times) was a true toughie to figure out. Several of the IGN editors had gathered behind me as we each tried to figure out just how to take this big bastard out. When finally we broke through and understood what to do, we actually cheered. Yeah, a bunch of jaded video game editors were ecstatic over beating a boss in one of several hundred games out this year. That's impressive.
If only they'd done this...
Of course no game is perfect, but DTR is a bit frustrating because it could have been even better with just a few more touches. For one, the fighting engine needed to be more robust, because it's totally anemic as is. And Shadow needed to be more useful than just sniffing bombs and killing bad guys. But perhaps my biggest complaint is for the lack of jumping and climbing. There is a dive button (Y), but you can't really jump onto stuff. You can't hop over railings or do a cool TJ Hooker slide over a car's roof. And you can't climb up onto a car either or other platforms and that's really annoying. A true jumping feature would have added a bit more fluidity to the game and certainly made for some cooler sights. I would spend a day doing the TJ Hooker across car hoods. I really would. Seriously.
Graphics
As crazy as this sounds, Dead to Rights doesn't go far enough. Yes, the game features head shots, brutal executions, explosions galore, and moaning prostitutes, but it actually holds back. A head shot, for example, doesn't blow a guys head off. You don't see brains splatter, you don't see guys clutching their guts as they die, you don't get a full view of brutality. That's fine that Namco wanted to not go too far, but the game is being touted as an over-the-top festival of violence when it really doesn't take the gore very far at all.
The action still packs a pretty solid visual punch, which is needed because the game itself isn't very pretty. There are some nice particle effects, but the majority of the game looks second-rate compared to recent Xbox titles. The animations are a bit stiff at times and some of the levels aren't visually stimulating.
The variety of disarms is fantastic and all of them are a blast to watch. But when the game is in your full control, it's not so pretty. There are a few glitches here and there as well, especially when it comes to guns with laser light scopes. Sometimes they seem to be quite off, as if they aren't coming from the gun at all.
It's that variety that helps make you forget about the spotty visuals. The game appears a bit too soft, not as sharp as an Xbox game should be. The cut-scenes, on the other hand, are nicely rendered FMVs. Though the storyline is a bit forgettable (something about gold bullion and corrupt government officials and such), it's still nice to watch the pretty cinematics before being thrown back into the rather standard-looking in-game world.
Sound
Some of the score is really well down, with music picking up in high-tension situations. But the voice acting is a bit of hit-and-miss. Some of the supporting cast is less than stellar, but Jack Slate is pretty good. He has a few painful lines that are too tired to be believed, but for the most part it's not bad. Gun shots are nice and loud and you do get girls moaning in a brothel (sorry, massage parlor). But the game fails to use the center channel.
You will hear bass kicking from the sub, but the voices come from the two front speakers (and sometimes from the rear speakers as well). No Xbox game should be without true 5.1 sound. Since this does use the sub woofer, I guess it could be considered 4.1 sound. But leave that for your GameCube and PS2. Xbox should utilize the hardware. The overall sound is good, but the lack of 5.1 sucks.