It's been a while since anyone saw Dead to Rights' downtrodden cop Jack Slate, but don't look for his continuing adventures in the new DTR game Retribution. Instead, developer Volatile Games is taking it back to the beginning, back to the streets with one of those trendy "reimaginings" that will retell the larger story of Slate and his trusty dog Shadow with a lot of smaller changes to characters and events that will keep even fans of the original guessing.
That's all I know so far about the story, but what I can tell you from watching the game is that it's got a lot of cover-based third-person shooting at and otherwise messing up criminals. You can disarm enemies or take them hostage and use them as shields, and you'll have some area-of-effect melee knock-back moves that will stun foes on either side of you so you can focus on the dude in front of you. Jack's also got some gnarly up-close execution moves, like one where he held a guy down with a boot on his chest and shot him in the face with a shotgun. (Jack's body was positioned just so you couldn't actually see the face-shooting, perhaps for ESRB considerations. C'mon guys, commit to your horrific violence!)
And wither your canine pal Shadow? Jack will start out his quest solo; a rep said the writers want some time to develop his character before he meets up with Shadow and starts really laying it down. As a consolation prize to make up for less dog overall, you'll actually get to play Shadow in some levels. One example I saw took the form of everyone's all-time favorite, the escort mission. Jack was so wounded he could barely drag himself along and certainly couldn't shoot a gun, so the player as Shadow had to roam around killing enemies to make way for Jack to crawl his way to safety. Shadow can see the outlines of enemies through walls and run up behind them to make quick and somehow silent kills.
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Jack Slate will return to the mean streets of Grant City in the fourth quarter of this year, though it remains to be seen if the third-person shooting here will stand out from the inevitably numerous other new entries in the genre.
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