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| | Title:
Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay
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System:
Xbox
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Genre:
Action/Shooter
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Publisher:
Namco
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Developer:
Namco
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Release:
4/12/2005
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
Mature (M)
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Gameplay
My first impression of this game after seeing previous video previews and clips of the game was, "Wow, what an explosive, over-the-top-sequel! I wonder how much stuff they added on to this bad boy?" Well, not a lot, or as much as some might expect considering the tough competition from Halo 2, Doom 3 and the impending Half-Life 2. While weapon selection, unlockable goodies and "bad guy" variation are abundant (and I use "bad guy" loosely, as there are times in the game when you must brutally gun-down, or massacre a horde of police officers) gameplay variation is redundant and repetitive.
And by this I really do mean repetitive; every scene in Dead to Rights 2 consists of several "bad guys" popping out or climbing down or jumping from some place in which you must point and shoot until they are all dead. That is the basic concept, with the exception of some unoriginal and recapitulated Streets-of-Rage/Gekido type fist-fights (and fist fights are restricted to fist-fights, as gun-fights are restricted to gun-fights, except for the disarm techniques).
While many first-person-shooters (And some third person-shooters) continually reuse the same concepts of point/aim and shoot, Dead-to-Rights 2 becomes heavy laden under the cool, but harried, use of the bullet-time effect. Which is limited due to a meter which is shared with the new gimmick of this game--Jack's best and most trust-worthy friend, Shadow. A killer sidekick dog that can either just kill, or kill and bring the weapon of the enemy back to Jack. These features would be cool if only they were essentially needed as a way to make the gameplay seem renewed or less repeatable.
An added chagrin is the lack of realism or distinction to the assortment of weapons. While the selection is varied from an uzi to a hand grenade to an assault rifle or a silenced .45 pistol, the distinction of these weapons is hard to verify aside from the difference in the way they were modeled. Shotguns sound like slowed down and slightly louder pistols, and machine guns sound like sped up pistols, and pistols sound like dull metal pop-guns being fired in an empty 8 x 11 bedroom. And without having to reload or change clips, all weapons dispense of their ammunition so quick that there is no need to develop a kinship with any of the guns, because they will be there and gone before you can say "Holy smoking barrels of bane!"
One redeeming factor to the gameplay would be Jack's ability to dodge bullets in mid-air with the bullet-time effect, and pick off nearly all your on-screen enemies. It makes the dog a shallow point at times. Or vice-versa, if you use the dog instead of the bullet-time special. Coupled with a stand-in-one-position-and-never-stop-shooting A.I., the game almost enforces the player to continue the same thing over in order to move on to the next phase of even more redundant gun fights. Or, if you are fighting hand-to-hand with the baddies, moreso than not you will use the same combos and half counter-attacks over and over again due to the limited and unoriginal fighting system.
The only exception to the gameplay flaws would be the disarm moves, which are basically preset moves Jack lays on his opponents when you get close and press X. He does different moves based on your position and the current weapon you are using, and some are kind of neat and original despite being overly violent, if not simply sadistic in their intent. The only problem is that the disarm moves connect with no other aspect of the gameplay.
For instance, the game's speed is on some kind of turbo-crack, but the disarm moves are slow enough for you to see Jack execute them fluently and smoothly. All the while, every other "bad guy" on the screen just keeps on shooting. And because of the A.I., in order to pull off most disarm moves it requires you to come out from hiding and run in the middle of the less-than-bright "bad guys" to disarm them. Which in a way defeats the purpose of disarming them if you have a weapon or can simply use his dog.
Thankfully, there are tons of knick-knack gaming features for the player to unlock, utilize or select from to keep an aspect of replay-value intact. But it barely accounts for all the other in-game drawbacks.
Graphics
The graphics in this game are fairly nice; the cinematics look promising and somewhat distinctive from other games. The problem, though, is that Dead-to-Rights 2 looks like it was made to be a PS2 game. While few polygon-edges are visible to the naked eye, and the model files are well crafted, the game lacks any graphical edge that sets it apart as an Xbox title. The lighting is drab and rudimentary, and the texture placement is clean and clear, yet lack any definition that would make you notice unless you just-so-happened decided to stop and take a closer look.
And with titles like Halo 2 or Mech Assault 2 sporting intense action and excellent graphics, it makes you question "What happened here"? Graphically, the game is not bad, but I have seen far better with more options and on-screen effects to think too much of this game's visual look.
Controls
Controlling Jack was easy, firing weapons was easy, and calling on the dog or jumping around or selecting a weapon was all fairly easy. But, manually aiming was not. Keeping the camera where you wanted was not easy, and utilizing some weapon combos (I.E., such as throwing a canister and jumping in slow-motion, while switching to one of your guns and blasting the canister out of mid-air to create a big explosion.,) was difficult if sometimes pain-staking to execute correctly.
Although, this was minor in comparison to the huge help granted from the auto-aim. This feature alone saved the game from what would have been a complete disaster. Using the bullet-time slow-motion feature and auto-aiming between enemies allows you to pick off an entire squad of opponents by simply holding down on your auto-aim button while floating through the air with your guns blazing. My only gripe about using the slow-motion effect was that it did not have it's own button, unlike calling in Shadow with the white button. The bullet-time effect shared Jack's evade/dodge button. While it would seem most effective that way, there were times when I only wanted to use a little bullet-time to get rid of a guy and hide behind a wall, but ended up using all of the meter because of the odd delay in starting/ending the slow-motion effect while jumping/dodging. But that was not too big of a deal due to the quick recharge of Jack's special meter (e.g., as long as someone is shooting at you, hit or miss, the meter will recharge).
Sound
The music seemed inaudible, and the weapon sounds were dull and uninspired. I was actually more convinced from the original Doom sounds than I was with this game. The voice-overs were also done in quite a poor fashion. Not to mention that this game truly does deserve the M rating, unlike some games burdened with the daunted M rating, this game actually ventures so far as to use quite a few four letter words (i.e., the 'S' and 'F' word) that even Fox networks might be ashamed to let slip on air.
Most of the the language, though, is tactless and careless. Some games have the voice overs to influence gamers that the characters have depth, or use the music in a way to tell the story when the game is silent from speech or effects. This game utilizes neither to an advantage. The cops that you blast down in this game made me feel no different from the thugs that I had to blast down. And even though the A.I. was nothing special, other games sometimes have speech interchanged during gameplay which can help establish the player with a sense of individuation between the characters in the game; this was not the case. The dialogue matched the A.I.
Overall
This game at best is worth a rent, which should give most gamers enough time to see whether or not the game is worth buying or leaving on the shelf. Although for the suspecting gamer, it would take less than two or three hours to come to that conclusion.
| The Core Score |
Overall
5.5 |
| Fun |
|
6.5 |
| Gameplay |
|
5.5 |
| Graphics |
|
6 |
| Audio |
|
4.5 |
| Replay |
|
5 |
|
| | | |
