| Dead To Rights |
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Dead To Rights
Meet Jack Slate, a Grant City cop who looks freakishly like Max Payne… As Jack and his canine sidekick Shadow are walking the beat, they attend a “shots fired” call from police dispatch. Arriving at the scene Jack’s dad is killed and a new conspiracy is unravelled, leaving Jack and Shadow to find the truth using any means necessary… this involves the duo being hunted by cops, thugs, bounty hunters and generally nasty people who do not want the truth to be known.
Dead to Rights’ is a 3rd person action game, in some ways similar to the previously mentioned ‘Max Payne’, but in other ways completely different. Here is why…
‘Max Payne’ was the first game to implement ‘Bullet Time’ into a game. For those of you who have been living in the dark for the last few years, ‘Bullet Time’ is basically a slow motion effect that allows the player to slow down the game at a press of a button and control the character’s aiming in ‘real time’. This looks really cool and is lots of fun to play around with, for example you can dive into a room with 5 bad guys in, slow the game down and shoot each one in turn. When the ‘Bullet Time’ is depleted the game resumes its normal speed and you can watch enemies drop at your feet. To re-gain ‘Bullet Time’ is simple… kill more enemies! Depending on how you kill and enemy determines how much ‘Bullet Time’ you receive.
What makes ‘Dead To Rights’ such an enjoyable game is the little bits and bobs that vary the playing style. Within the main game there are sub-games to break from the action. These include disarming bombs, arm wrestling and even making a stripper dance to distract guards. In total there are about 7 mini-games, each adding style and variety to the gun blasting.
For the gun-nuts and Charlton Heston fans out there, you will be glad to hear there are LOTS of guns and each are given real-life names. The game is far from simulation but each gun has different strengths and weaknesses, just enough to keep in tone with the arcade feel. Gas canisters can be picked up and thrown, and then shot in mid air, creating an explosion capable of smoking a bunch of enemies. It’s touches like this that make the game so playable.
When ammo is low you can always fight using your fists and feet. You can punch, kick and throw your enemies and can also combine button presses to create some kick ass fight scenes. Animation is fluid and looks fantastic. This is not a half-arsed effort at creating a basic fight system, as a few levels leave you un-armed and decent fist fights are the only way to finish the level.
What do you do when you are un-armed and are faced by a guy with a huge shotgun? Disarm him of course! Running up to an enemy and clicking the ‘B’ button will automatically perform one of the stunning disarm moves. Each move is different depending on what weapon the enemy is carrying, my favourite being the M16 rifle. A click of the button will make Jack grab the weapon, roll behind the enemy and kick him into the air whilst shooting the crap out of the poor fella.
To make disarm moves even better are the cinematic style camera angles and the option to manually change camera angle.
Human shields can be made my grabbing and enemy from behind. This gives you a bit more protection from on-coming bullets and adds to your ‘Bullet Time’ bar. If you get bored of using the shield, another click of the ‘B’ button puts a gun to the enemies head and pulls the trigger.
‘Dead to Rights’ is a huge game, spanning across 15 chapters. The Story line is surprisingly well written and main characters are well designed. Every so often there is a boss to defeat; this does not always involve shooting till he drops. One boss later in the game challenges you to a fist fight; he is about 3 times the size of Jack so the only way to defeat him, is to strangle him. This is done by getting behind the character at certain times and grabbing him. Once he has been ‘grabbed’ the player needs to press the ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons rapidly to reduce the enemy’s health. This simple but effective approach works perfectly and really gets the adrenaline running.
The in-game graphics are not the best I have seen on the Xbox, but still manage to feel right and allow for no slow down during play. There can be up to 8 enemies on screen at once and the game will not slow down in the slightest. Where as the graphics are fairly standard, there are some nice looking effects such as fire, explosions and smoke.
The movie sequences are amazing, right up there with Shrek and Toy Story. The opening intro shows a raid by Jack and Shadow, whilst showing off some features of the game such as diving, using human shields and shooting canisters. This is not an FMV sequence you watch just once, it will have you watching again even after you have completed the game.
Voiceovers are extremely well done, again similar to Max Payne. The music is top-notch and comes in at the right times. If there was an option for custom soundtracks I wouldn’t use it as a lot of atmosphere is added to the game with the soundtrack.
You may be thinking… “There are a lot of things to do in the game so how easy is it to control?” Well, as you start the game there is a tutorial that works a treat. By the end of it you will have already shot a canister, used a human shield, controlled Shadow and been shown how to aim.
The aiming system is well done, holding down the right trigger will auto-target the nearest enemy and pressing ‘A’ fires the weapon.
Once an enemy has been targeted a cursor appears around them, showing if the weapon Jack is holding is in range or not. Red means a certain hit, yellow means possible and green means out of range. Once an enemy has bit the dust a blue cursor appears. This is extremely handy when using ‘Bullet Time’ as you want to know when the enemy has died so you can aim your fire on the next victim.
Auto-targeting does not make the game easy, without it the game would not be much fun as it would simply be too hard to aim. For the snipers amongst us there is a first person view, handy for getting a one-shot-kill to the head. Sniper rifles can be tricky to aim and it is rare that Jack has the time to aim a long-ranged shot, but the option is still there.
After a bit of practice the controls become a lot simpler, at first they can seem a little tricky but learning them is definitely worth the wait.
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