Dead to Rights: Retribution Review
By - Craig H
Almost 8 years have passed since the original Dead to Rights was released on the Xbox and Playstation 2. Developer Violate Games has promised to re-invent the series and push the game in a new direction. What was achieved was a run-of-the-mill third person shooter that will be forgettable shortly after completion (though is fun while it lasts).
Dead to Rights: Retribution follows a Metro City cop Jack Slate along with his bear sized K-9 companion Shadow. The plot starts midway through a hostage situation where you find an indecisive police chief who refuses to act or do anything prior to SWAT arriving. While he waits, a hostage gets tossed out a 15 floor balcony and it’s up to Jack to head in alone to fight up the tower. As Jack moves up the floors of the high-rise to free the hostages he slaughters all the enemies in his way. This hostage situation is just the beginning of a twisted tale of corruptions, revenge, chaos and the inevitable conspiracy. Dead to Rights story feels like a low budget action movie and provides little incentive to get attached to its characters. The voice acting is delivered adequately but the actual dialogue is laughably bad. This adds to the low budget action feel and actually adds to the game because it all works together. Though, you will likely forget about the story as soon as you pop in another game.
Jack can dismantle his opposition in numerous, bloody, gory, over-the-top ways. At Jacks disposal are numerous weapon types, hand-to-hand combat, and his dog Shadow. Each successful takedown, headshot, quick kill, etc. will add to a focus meter. This meter is used to slowdown time and provides assistance with clearing a room with large amount of enemies much like the “bullet time” feature found in other games.
The gunplay in Dead to Rights leans towards the need to perform successful headshots. Each weapon in the game has limited ammunition. If you run out of ammo for a particular weapon Jack will toss the weapon aside and either use his second weapon or go straight to hand-to-hand combat. Headshots are essential with the limitation of ammunition. At times you can pump a full clip into an enemy only to see them continue to keep coming. But, one bullet to the head will have their heads explode like a sledgehammer to a watermelon (sound effects included). Only problem is that a lot of the weapons are fairly inaccurate and can have issues with hitting the headshots from moderate distances. Shadow can be used to distract or attack enemies on command via the d-pad. This is useful when enemies are behind cover and refuse to pop up for a quick headshots and must be lured into the open.
The hand-to-hand combat tries to mimic the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum “freeflow combat” but fails in its implementation. You use the face buttons to throw weak and strong attacks, clinch moves, throws, blocks, counters and disarms. You can attempt to fight multiple enemies by directing your analog stick at them but the game does not react quickly enough, nor does it have a lock-on feature, to make this anything but frustrating. Focusing on one enemy and then moving to the other is the best way for success. One main feature of the hand-to-hand combat is brutal quick kill attacks. After stringing enough hits together you will be prompted to perform the quick kill. These quick kills consist of breaking arms, soccer kicks to the head, and gunshots to the back of the head just to name a few. These are entertaining to watch as long as the camera doesn’t focus on Jack’s chest or an adjacent wall. If you engage an armed enemy you will be prompted to perform a disarm. If you time the disarm correctly you will be able to hit the enemy with a headshot to quickly end the altercation.
After every couple of missions you will assume the role of Shadow in stealth style missions. For some untold reason Shadow has the ability to see through walls and hear enemy heartbeats (again ala Batman: Arkham Asylum). This makes these parts like shooting fish in a barrel. When Shadow sneaks he is practically invisible to the enemies and can perform stealth kills to mask the screams while he tears at the enemy’s crotch or lunges for their throats. These missions are nothing more than to get a key card and unlocking a gate. For someone of Jack’s caliber the need for a dog to squeeze through a fence to unlock a door seems a bit silly. Jack simply boots most doors open anyways and it’s not like he’s going to tip-toe in as to not been seen or raise an alarm.
Shadow is a main character in the game but feels like he was a late addition. He feels out of place in the environments and moves rigidly while turning (he turns like a tank but quicker). After just a short time playing the game you will notice that he is just under-polished (though the whole game is a bit under-polished) compared to the other characters and environments. While attacking enemies you may frequently notice that he is not actually touching the person but hover or tugging on the air. Shadow also has the tendency to stay out from cover and take unneeded punishment and will need to be revived often. This again adds to the feeling he was an afterthought. Why would you just leave him out from cover and left to enemy attacks?
The camera has to be the most frustrating oversight by the developer. The camera constantly fights with you to get the proper view. This is very apparent when involved in hand-to-hand combat where enemies will be in your blind spot and the camera does not want to allow you to position it to fit the environment. As described earlier, the quick kill videos also find the camera getting hung up in walls thus making the animation useless because you are looking at a wall, the ground, or Jacks chest/legs.
One general highlight of the game is the overall AI. Enemies will flank on your position and if they run out of ammo will run to another weapon on the ground and pick it up. Of course occasionally they try to hide behind objects that are too small and makes for easy headshots but for the most part do a good job keeping you at bay.
Dead to Rights: Retribution has no online functionality and after the original playthrough, which takes roughly 8-10 hours, there is little incentive to replay. After each level you are awarded a medal for your gameplay which you can best on additional playthroughs. The only collectable to be had during the game are police badges scattered throughout each level with most being in plain sight when closely rounding corners. After getting the “gold” medal on each level (which is rather easy and can be done on your first playthrough) and collecting the badges there is really nothing left to do.
Overall, Dead to Rights: Retribution is not a bad game. The game suffers from trying to load the game with popular mechanics of other games but falls flat on its overall implementation and polish. The camera tries to fight with you and ruins what should have been brutally entertaining quick kills. For what it’s worth the game is enjoyable to play and would make a great rental for a long weekend. Unfortunately it’s just a run-of-the-mill third person shooter that will likely be forgotten quickly.
Quick Synopsis:
Pros: Fun gameplay. Decent campaign length for an action shooter (roughly 8-10 hours). Watching Shadow tear enemy’s crotches apart or pulling out their jugulars never gets old
Cons: Shadow is a main character but feel out of place and controls sluggishly. No online multiplayer. Very few collectibles to add replayability. Gameplay elements inspired by other games fall flat to compare anywhere near their counterparts. Camera constantly gets placed poorly and fights with you.
RATING: 6/10
