STORY: You step into the shoes and behind the badge as Jack Slate, a hard-boiled detective who's the most wanted man in Grant City. The story unfolds backwards, starting in the present, cutscenes bookend the chapters, and you play as Jack details the story to his friend. He and his dad get caught up in the middle of a conspiracy, city police and government corruption, and down right murderous deals. Nothing too epic, a good summer fun action flick. This is a remake from the first Dead to Rights, and in my opinion, the only one up until now, that is awesome!
GRAPHICS: The engine looks nice, though hard to show as the story takes place in one big rainy night. The environments are varied with great attention to detail, but lots of browns and grays. The lighting is cool, but again, the colors may make some feel they are playing the same level over and over.
AUDIO: The music is typical action style no Metal Gear Solid orchestra for this one. But not cheesy acid rock either. Good pumping music that doesn't get in the way, nor is all that memorable. The voicework is good and the acting not bad, though sometimes the writing can be a little cheesy. The characters do make you care about them though, and they make you love the ones you are suppossed to, and despise the evil ones. The weapon and sound effects are decent, but run of the mill not something that will engage your subwoofer all that much. But does offer nice 5.1
GAMEPLAY: Here's where its addicting, and a little frustrating. You have a plethora of weapons and grenades you can use, and on-the-fly-switching from gunplay to hand to hand combat is a breeze. Really shines there. The disarms are brutal and each gun has its own different tweak on them, but you can't do specific disarms like you could in the first entry into the series. The hand to hand combos can be a VERY long string of buttons. Not complicated, just long to remember. You might just make your own combos until a finish move button prompt comes up, of which plays out random killing animations. Not for the faint hearted.
What annoyed me was the developers were lazy in some aspects, such as lots of solid objects that you would take cover behind are not tagged as such, so you are taking bullets as you are wondering why the heck he's not ducking. Also, you almost RARELY see where an enemy's grenade landed, so you have to use sound cues to make sure you run in the opposite direction. In fact, I only heard the rapidly increasing beeping and didn't know if that was a grenade, or a bomb they had engaged the timer on. So, a couple of cheap instances, but not gamebreaking or unfair. Playable even on the hardest mode. I only died a few times. They put a decent amount of stealth into the mix as you get to contol his K-9 cop Shadow, which was neat how they implemented that.
OVERALL: This game is fun and brutal for winding down after a long day, or if you are just looking for some action. Maybe not worth $60, but definitely keep an eye out for it when it goes on sale. Not to mention, there are fun hidden things to find, interesting and challenging achievements / trophies, and unlockables such as concept art and cinematics. Whether you are a fan of the original or a newcomer to the series, this is definitely worth a grab as it has action 'Dead to Rights'.
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I think the game is worth a purchase if your looking for a 3rd person action game. For starters you have plenty of options during gameplay. You can go in looking to use hand to hand combat or being a shooter & utilizing cover.The combat system is pretty deep yet basic
You have Strong attack & Weak attack
you can block & dash to be defensive
You can Clinch & do some nice knees
While surrounded you can attack in different directions while in a clinch
You can send your dog Shadow in to attack a enemy & do alittle tag team action
You can perform throws
Theres execution kills you can perform after combos
Take Enemies as hostages to protect yourself from fire
Gun play is kinda basic as well
You can only hold 2 guns(1 being a sidearm)
You use cover when under fire & its useful to line up shots
When performing certain things you build up a adrenaline meter. When you press a button you slow down time & can set up some nice headshots
Theres ammo lying around enemies.
You can take enemies guns from them during combat
Your dog will fetch guns for you also.
Theres also a stealth portion to the game. You often Play as Shadow & you sneak around using different tactics to lure enemies near to get stealth kills.
In conclusion uts a really good action game with variety in gameplay. Once you learn everything you'll be having a great time
Best Deals for Dead to Rights: Retribution - Xbox 360
Since you can't give half stars, this game gets a 4. It would be a 3.5 otherwise. But it has enough going for it that it doesn't deserve a 3. Dead To Rights: Retribution, to me, is a cross between Max Payne and Gears of War. The comparison comes from the fact that the character models are total beef buses. I haven't seen so many guys ripped this hardcore since 300. The cover system and the overall feel of the game is also very Gears of War-ish. However, as in Max Payne, you get the "bullet-time" ability, the ability to slow down time. And, as in Max Payne, this is invaluable when surrounded by enemies and taking damage. And, to build on that further, you'd have to be an idiot, or not have played either Max Payne game (the third is on the way...yay?) not to see the similarity. And now an adendum, because what I am going to say next effected both my judgement of the game, and will be a deal breaker for some people:The story is told in chapters, with narration by your character. The game starts after you have been shot in the arm, and you are relaying what happened to an EMT/goth friend (ho) named Faith. And the story itself falls squarely in the noir genre. And if you don't like that sort of over-the-top, intentionally cheesy, violent and bloody story, you will probably not like this game. And that's okay. I for one love the genre, since a lot of the darkest video games come from it. However, the story is VERY convoluted, and some people might not be able to accept this game, with its flaws, for that reason. And they aren't wrong.
Okay so you play Jack Slate, an on-again off-again police officer who, whether he currently has his badge or not, doesn't wear a uniform. Because...that would just be boring, am I right? So instead you wear some sort of weird...armor/JC Penny clearance hybrid that doesn't really provide much damage protection. I say it doesn't provide much damage protection because, well, I died a lot playing this game on the medium setting. Which brings me to my first set of cons:
>Cover doesn't always work: Sometimes you take cover, but enemies seem to shoot through it or over it and still manage to hit you. Incredibly frustrating when you happen to be up against one or more snipers.
---------->Cover continued: Blind-Fire: Sometimes when you are positioned behind cover, you line up a shot at an enemy, and you fire, but for whatever reason the game doesn't understand you are trying to shoot AROUND your cover, so you end up emptying your magazine into the wall you are taking cover behind. "Why don't you just position your character right next to the corner so you don't shoot the wall, Faceless Amazon Video Game Reviewer?" I can hear a lot of you asking? Well, because if you get right up to the corner, your character very stupidly leans his mongoloid head out, along with part of his arm. I mean, the whole point of taking cover and being able to blind fire is that it's inaccurate and you DON'T take damage. It was one frustration and caused quite a few deaths. Honestly, if you're going to take damage in cover you might as well just rush the enemies and not bother with cover (this tactic works better than I thought it would, and in the end is much less frustrating and will cause many less instances of death.
-------------------->Cover concluded: Actual Cover: The last gripe I have with cover is that, as with most third-person shooters, you will always know when you are about to have a fight, because the cover (t-rails, barrels, crates, cars) are situated VERY CONSPICUOUSLY. They might as well just paint all the cover objects banana yellow so we don't feel like the developers were being so patronizing. Just once I would like to see a game that utilizes some sort of creative cover system instead of just building strategic maps filled with the same objects again and again. "Oh, you would like to engage with me in rocket launcher to sniper rifle combat? Well, good thing we are surrounded by concrete pylons!").
>Ammunition: For a third person shooter, this is where the real frustration lies for me. So basically, even though your character looks like he can lift a bus full of elephants, apparently he just can't carry more than one spare magazine. Yes, that's right, he does not and will carry more than a full magazine in the gun, and one extra one filled to capacity. Which means that even for the assault rifle, you're carrying max 80 rounds. So unless you're planning to make them all head shots (good luck with an assault rifle), you are going to run out of ammo, and quick. I thought maybe it was just a "while you learn the ropes this is how much you can carry" thing, but nope, it lasts throughout the entire game. What this means is that once you run out of ammo you discard the weapon you're holding. Really? At least let him hang on to it to use as a melee weapon (you can can only use guns as melee weapons when you have ammo...useful occasionally, but not practical or logical that it is set up this way). So I guess this must have been implemented to add another challenge to the game. But to me, it felt more irritating than something I was challenged in a fun way with. You CAN use Shadow to go and fetch you weapons while you stay behind in cover, but if you send him out there, you run the risk of him being incapacitated, in which case you are screwed. Because now you have no ammo and no killer wolf-dog hybrid.
>Hordes of Enemies: The only other complaint I can make is how many enemies there are in the game. It's something that is kinda...eh, yunno, I'll let it slide. But the problem is that it almost ruins the atmosphere of the game. The graphics aren't amazing (they're good, mind you), so it kind of takes away from the ambiance and atmosphere when you can' just go through an area WITHOUT having to fight off enemies. There is really something to be said for less being more, especially in the noir genre. You leave some areas empty to keep us, the gamers, guessing. Because at any minute you might be ambushed or rushed by a horde of enemies. It keeps you on your toes (this is something the Max Payne franchise did amazingly), and adds another dimension to the game.
So now on to what the game does RIGHT:
>Shadow (The dog): The parts of the game where you control Shadow are actually pretty fun, and when you take an enemy down, it is vicious and gory (and insanely fun to watch). You can sneak up on enemies, or charge them and take them down. The way they implement Shadow is...eh, creative enough, I suppose, though I think in many instances they built the story around an idea they had for Shadow. It's not bad, and using Shadow is a nice change from controlling Jack. And even though Shadow occasionally will get in your way when you're trying to take cover, he is handy at time when you're overwhelmed.
>Weapons: They are fun to use, and varied pretty greatly. The only problem with them is, as I stated before, that you hardly get any ammunition for them.
>Takedowns: Another reviewer said it perfectly, that they are interesting enough not to be boring, and short enough that they aren't tedious. And they are VICIOUS. Most all of them involve breaking the bones of your enemy.
>Blood: Honestly, I'm a sucker for games where there are realistic (or over-the-top in some cases) blood effects. And this game is one of the greatest I've played. If you take someone out with a shotgun, well, they don't explode, per se, but expect the blood splatters to end up on everything, and sometimes as far as twenty feet behind your enemy. I can't say I have ever played a game so brutal.
>Lighting: It's very dramatic, and it serves the game well. And to add on to this, as with Max Payne, most of the game takes place during rain/snow, which serves to make you feel truly alone in the wilderness.
>Voice-Acting: Even though it can be what some people would call incredibly cheesy, that is the way noir films and games are meant to be. So if you don't like the style, you won't like this game. So even though your character has pretty b-movie one-liners ("Lights out!" "You have the right to remain SILENT!") it is all done in a very tasteful way that does credit to the genre.
So, in conclusion, the game doesn't push the boundaries of originality, it just sticks with what has worked before. And even though there is more action, and more frustrating action than I would like, it's still worth playing, in my opinion. If you are a fan of Max Payne or The Darkness, you should definitely get this game, it fits into that genre seamlessly. However, maybe buy it used. $50 is still a bit much (for ANY game).
Honest reviews on Dead to Rights: Retribution - Xbox 360
This game was built just well enough for me to play it through to the end, but it became a chore after several seemingly-never-ending levels. Ultimately, it was a completely forgettable experience. Despite having a solid beginning for the story that got me interested, it devolved into a cliched cop story with excessive amounts of machismo, gratuitous cursing, and violent head busting (dare I say, even more than Max Payne 3).It's too bad, because this game seems like a great idea in theory. It combines stop and pop, cover-based shooting, run and gun gameplay, and hand to hand combat. Unfortunately, none of these things are done very well by modern standards, and the super long levels quickly become a chore. The highlight of this game is the dog, Shadow (and getting to play as him), but even he can't save this title from mediocrity.
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