STORY AND PRESENTATION
You are Jack Slate and, with your trusty partner Shadow by your side, are waging a war against terrorist crime. Let’s get right to the point folks. The story in Dead To Rights Retribution is on par with a horrible action flick. I am talking ‘Universal Soldier II: The Return’ horrible. You start off the game in a tutorial section and literally have no idea why you are there. Terrorists are running at you from all directions and it is your job as Shadow to help Jack Slate survive. While this may not sound bad right now, unfortunately this is just about how every mission in the game is going to go. The story wasn’t engaging and, most of the time, I felt like skipping the cut scenes just to get to the action. The game’s overall presentation needs a lot of work. Thankfully, the sections where you get to play as the K-9, Shadow, are by far the game’s shining moments. The way it brought you down to animal-level when you were stalking was very interesting and also a nice change of pace from the run-and-gun action of every other level.
If Namco Bandai decides to create a third game in the series, I truly hope they focus on putting some development time into an engaging story. Without having that story to hook the player, it just seems like you are doing the same thing over and over again.
GAMEPLAY
Dead To Rights Retribution is your typical third-person shooter. The left stick operates movement and the right stick uses the camera. You also have shoot buttons and special weapons at your disposal. Not only can you shoot foes from range, but the game also has a huge melee component. Stringing buttons together, Jack can deliver some crazy combos and finishing moves. The only problem with the melee system is the camera. It ends up swinging around at crazy angles so you have no clue what is going on! This pretty much holds true for every sequence in the game and, as it turns out, the camera is your biggest boss battle in the whole experience.
Retribution also features a cover system that Jack ca make use of but, to be honest, it did not work very well. The system, similar to Gears Of War, pops-up an icon if you had somewhere to hide. Great idea but I found it to be very unresponsive and, most of the time, it would bypass the cover in favor of jumping over it.
As mentioned earlier in the review there are certain times where you control Shadow. Shadow can run right in and rip out a bad guy’s throat or sneak around to get his prey. The cool part about having Shadow lurk is you are able to sense heartbeats and see where the baddies are at on the map. Make enough noise and the baddies heart beat will change alerting him to where you are at. This made for some fun scenarios where you can have Shadow bark only to lure a terrorist to his death. Nothing says death like a huge wolf-dog hybrid latching onto someone’s crotch. Oh, and did I mention there is an achievement for that crotch kill? The game really needed a lot more Shadow and a lot less Jack Slate.
One of the weirder issues to pop up in the gameplay was the downright wonky enemy AI. I am not sure where these guys were trained, but it seemed that every single one of them would banzai straight for my face. It did not matter if Jack was spraying a level with bullets – the baddies just keep running straight up to him. This got really old after awhile as it felt like you were killing the same person over and over. Also funny were the moments when AI baddies would get trapped in a wall or stuck behind an obstacle… like a potted plant (seriously).
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics in Dead To Rights Retribution were very hit or miss. In some places, the environments were great to look at and, in others, they were marred with glitches. The character models almost always looked the same except with different outfits. Shadow was done well but they really almost made him bear-like compared to the other models in the game. The cut-scenes were the best part of the graphics engine as they produced some nice outdoor environments and explosions. Overall, just average visuals, unfortunately.
The sound was average as well, with ambient sounds being very well done, but voice-overs being awful. It really was just like watching a bad action flick including the zany one liners. Also to note were some audio glitches where, during explosions, the sound of the bang would stutter.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Hear me, Shogunites, this is not a game that you want to run out and by from your local gaming store! At best, Dead To Rights Retribution is a rental but only for the parts where you play Shadow. If I had my way the third game would be about Shadow turning on his master and going out on his own! (ed. note: I like this. Would be like Ecco, but with a bear-wolf-dog. Yes!)
* Disclosure: A copy of the game was provided by Namco Bandai for this review.
