Customer Reviews

Dead To Rights

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

A lot of people are talking about DTR as though it was a Max Payne clone. Aside from the issue of "bullet-time", or the slow-motion diving-while-shooting, DTR and Max share virtually nothing in common. Ok, so both are stories about ex-cops out for revenge, but that's where the similarities end.

Dead to Rights has a lot more built-in diversity in gameplay than Max Payne does. The character can fight unarmed, have his sidekick dog attack enemies, disarm enemies and steal their guns, and hide against walls and kill people stealthily. That's not to mention the plethora of minigames, which take most of their gameplay from the venerable Track and Field series of button-mashing to some specified parameters.

DTR doesn't have half the atmosphere that Max Payne does, and that's largely due to the art direction and cinematography, rather than anything else. A lot of the cutscenes are done in-engine, and while DTR's not ugly, it's not pretty, either. Visually, it's about half-way between Halo and a Dreamcast game.

The most important thing to consider, however, when trying to decide whether to purchase DTR, is that it's staggeringly difficult. The biggest problem with DTR is that the difficulty comes not from a legitimate, skill-based challenge, but from a lousy camera, and poor auto-targetting.

At times, you will dive at a person with a shotgun, who is standing not far in front of you. You might be armed with a shotgun as well, so range would be an important consideration, since you'll do more damage to something closer to you. But rather than targetting the guy in front of you, where one hit would kill him, you end up targetting someone off-camera, to your left, who's behind a truck. Of course, after flying through the air like an idiot, you land at this guy's feet, where he kills you with one close-range shotgun blast.

The problem with DTR is that it's so full of potential, and so full of neat ideas, and they're mired in this half-baked mess, where you can't DO any of the things that you *want* to do.

It's a neat game, on paper - full of potential, full of excellent ideas. But as it stands, it's frustrating not because of a legitimate challenge, but because every couple of minutes, you'll be killed by something you couldn't possibly avoid.

Dead to Rights is staggeringly difficult. I've been playing it for about four days now, and I have some good points and bad.

First off, disarms are way too cool. There are nearly twenty to unlock. I figure I'll have to play all the way through the game at least three times to get them all. Right up there with disarms is taking hostages to use as human shields. This is very nearly a necessity in every gunfight-the AI has pretty good aim. You can use all the weapons your enemies can-many different pistols, shotguns, and rifles. In addition, you have an attack dog. He's an instant kill, plus he'll retrieve the weapon from the enemy he just tore up. The storyline is well-crafted for this genre. Certainly no surprises, but it is engaging.

The in-game graphics are nowhere near what the XBox is capable of. It looks like a PS2 game. Don't get me wrong-it's playable, but not top-caliber. In many cases, speaking characters' mouths don't move during cutscenes. The camera controls are only occasionally frustrating. The controls for gunfights are good. You're forced to auto-aim a great deal, but the auto-aim controls are responsive. The hand-to-hand combat controls are, frankly, awful. There is virtually no finesse involved, and long sections of hand-to-hand become button-mashfests only slightly below the mini-game sequences. By the way, the first minigame is awful beyond the telling of it.

If you are easily frustrated, this is not the game for you, though I'd still suggest renting it. All in all, I enjoy this game. It's worth the money if you enjoy a big challenge, and if you can overlook the game's annoyances.

This game has many things going for it, but I am not going to itemize those things. The reason I rated this game 2 stars (and subsequently cancelled my pre-order) - was solely because of the RIGHT THUMBSTICK. It infuriates me to no end that I must press (the RIGHT THUMBSTICK) RIGHT to look LEFT and vice versa. It boggles my mind that there is no menu option to reverse the polarity. Prisoner of War - has the same exact flaw. Let me be as clear as I can (in the hopes that video game programmers are reading). All players want the most "intuitive and flexible" controls possible - so that they can become effecient at killing bad guys. Pressing RIGHT to look LEFT will NEVER EVER EVER be intuitive for me. Please AGREE with this comment so that we send a BIG message to the video game makers. HALO's controls are perfect - don't reinvent the wheel!

This is a not as good version of Max Payne with some ninja twists thrown in. It's story line is ok, based on a good cop who gets a "raw deal", kind of like in Max Payne, but the game play is inferior to Max Payne.

1. The shooting action is not too bad, though could be a little more interactive and realistic, and some of the music did not fit the scenes. (A hip hop song during an intense shoot out, for example)

2. A personal bias, but I hate the ninja, kung fu sequences. Like in much of the game, you play from a third person's perspective, where you really don't feal like the guy you are playing. Some of the sequences are hard to do because of awkward angles. And though I thought it was kind of funny, one goofy scene was after an intense ninja fight where you have to take out 18 bad guys at once in a prison block, you end the difficult sequence by fighting it out with a last prisoner in an arm wrestling match.

3. Some very difficult sequences where you are tested on how fast and accurately you can push your x-box control buttons, doing things such as lifting weights. It was not only very challenging, but possibly impossible for some people to enjoy this game or continue it unless they are very good with their hand-eye coordination and have no hand or wrist ailments.

4. I thought the attack dog idea was a good one. Very inventive.

Over all a good game, though I am glad I rented it first. I would not pay 50 dollars for it. Save your money for Max Payne or Halo.

If you liked any of the Rockstar games (GTA 3, Max Payne, State of Emergency), then preorder this...now!!! In terms of gameplay, from what I have seen, this looks very similar to Max Payne, but about 100 times better. Dead to Rights is absolutely one of the most ruthless games I have seen and can easily compare to GTA 3 on the violence scale....It only gets better... Sneak up..grab their gun, beat them down to the ground with it, and then shoot them with their own friggin' gun until you feel they are dead enough. Looks to be a classic game for any fan of mob/gangster related titled. A side note- Dead to Rights was changed from an all-system title to an XBOX exclusive. Eat that PS2... All in all, if you felt a little disappointed with the gamelength and the predictable plot of Max Payne, but still enjoyed running around blowing people away in slow motion, then Dead to Rights is for you...

...ruin a game I was really looking forward to. An earlier review had it right - pushing LEFT on the right joystick to look RIGHT? And you can't completely customize the controls? Also, the fighting (without a gun) is really clunky. When a large number of Xbox owners have DoA, and many of us grew up on Tekken and Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter, etc, any fistfighting game has a lot to live up to. And it doesn't. The gunplay is pretty cool, though; but it would be much better with controls that are intuitive or 100% customizable.

Dead to Rights is about a cop named Jack Slate that is in somewhat similiar situation as Max Payne (except he has a dog).
The gameplay is different from Max Payne and the game overall has alot of pluses and minuses.

PLUS: The disarms are great, it can always get you out of a tough situation, also the dog attack is an automatic killer you also get their weapon. The bullet time is done nicely (nothing to add more than its bullet time). The different choice of arsenals are great. The AI are also very intelligent and has great AIM which makes this game a bit challenging at times.

MINUS: Some graphics and cutscenes are just flat out horrible. Like the cars, and the cutscenes when they talk and their mouth doesnt move(Mind speaking?). Camera: you constantly have to find yourself switching to the default cameral because you are getting killed because you went around the corner... Stupid Submissions: some of the submissions are okay, like picking a lock and disarming the bomb, but the weight lifting and the punching bags and those type just test how long can your thumb last without getting tired or hurt.

Storyline: very similiar to Max Payne. A framed cop going after corrupted people with alot of power in their hand who hires people to kill you, and you find a mysterious girl who helps you named Eve but never gets to completely to know her (reminds you of Mona Sax???) and how you look for revenge.

Overall: Overall, i thought this game was great with some errors that could be ignored and overcame. It just takes alot of patience because some missions in this game just seem impossible until you find out your suppose to leave instead of keep fighting (OOOOOO!!!!) but the difficulty of the game is very high with very intelligent AI.

Gameplay: 8.5
Graphics: 7.5
Storyline: 8.5
Sound: 8.0
Replay Value: 8.5 *if you want to see the amazing disarming moves.
OveralL: 8.2

Dead to Rights is probably the only game to ever make me feel like I was part of an action movie, Max Payne had its moments, but you never fought 15 guys at once in MP, in DTR it is more than often than not the standard. For instance, when you have to bust out of the massage parlor with Eve, and take down guys while finding cover behind cars, and popping up and capping guys its truly exhilarating and you feel as though you've overcome some overwhelming odds. Good stuff. Now to the bad, the whole hand to hand fighting engine is absolutely awful, it is a diversion and an absolutely unneeded one, the gun parts stand up on their own without this arbitrary annoyance. The fighting interludes had me yelling expletives in no time, an example of the completely ludicrous challenge they present is the boss battle with Tattoo, he has two henchmen. But you can't kill them, they beat the <...> out of you, and all you can do is hit them a few times to knock them over. Thats just awful, I threw the controller for the first time since I was like 10 years old. That said, the gun battles are hard, but not controller fury inducing, you feel as though you can actually beat them with a little practice, so its not a lost cause. The fighting parts just <...> The graphics aren't bad, and Namco was obviously going for a more arcade feel rather than the world of grit and grime of Max Payne. The story is pretty standard, although it has its intriguing moments. There are a bunch of mini-games and diverse missions, and they are all fun, except for the punching ones mentioned earlier. Last thing, this game is staggeringly violent. This is the only game where I can take a human shield, then gun down 3 guys and then put the shield on his knees, and blow his head off with a shotgun, its horribly offensive, but cool nonetheless. So if you're not offended by the utterly gratuitous violence, then give this game a shot, it deserves it.

I bought the game, wished I would have rented it first. I thought I was getting a game with Halo and Max Payne combined. It is a nice try though. The controls are very frustrating, and the camera control ...is confusing, esspecaly when you are in the heat of battle. The slow motion dive like Max Payne is very cool, but About 25 percent of the time when you go for the dive you end up shooting at a wall or nothing at all. The grapics are ok, and the sound is ok to. When talking to other people their mouths dont move so they must be talking with their minds. The fighting gets a little old. There really is no cool moves, just punching and a couple of different kinds of kicks. The game is very difficult but very challenging. You keep doing the same stuff over and over again, you fight some, you shoot some, and you fight a little more and shoot alot more. Over and over again.

Taking away weapons from the enemy is very cool, and so is using the enemy as a shield. I like the way he can spin and shoot around courners of walls. The weapons have great firing action. His dog is really cool, on your comand the dog will attack, kill and retreive the bad guys weapon. The story line is fun and creative, it makes you want to finish the game as fast as you can to see what happens next. Just when you thing you have the story solved it changes to something new. The story is the best part of the game and will make you keep playing until your fingers hurt. This is not a game of much thinking but mostly of reflex. you have to take your time or you will be killed in seconds.

Its one of the more tougher games to play.
Rent if first before you though out the money

If Dead to Rights was a movie, you can bet your lucky stars that Mission: Impossible and the other big action movie rejects would be shuffling along the sidewalk in their bathrobe. Namco's latest bullet riddled action title is one of the most cinematic, action packed over-the-top action games I've ever played. The entire game's adrenaline barometer is clicking at full tilt and doesn't dare slow down to lose that eccentric sensation of pulse inducing gun fights that make us feel like Bruce Willis in Die Hard; and its that quality that makes Dead to Rights a worthwhile game, flaws and all.

Yes, Jack Slate (The main hero/good cop/framed man) is a [copy] of Remedy's Max Payne, he plays more like a reject from the drawing board of Bruce Willis wannabe's. Yes, his one liners are cheesy and he fires them off like there's no tomorrow, not to mention his bullet-time/slow motion dive looks odd. Okay, okay yeah, Jack Slate is a complete retard, but when you shrug off that silly smirk off your face, you'll find yourself clenching your burly Xbox controller and indulged in a piece of action gaming bliss. Dead to Rights takes place in a fictional setting "Grant City", Jack Slate is a wise-ass officer who's father is killed (Of course) and he in turn is framed for murder and gets caught up in a dangerous web of corrupt cops, city officials and more gun fights that Clint Eastwood's even seen. Yeah, the story's not going to win any awards, nor was it meant to, thankfully Namco shifts it focus off the story and more onto the game rather than the heavily story driven roots of ones such as its inspiration Max Payne.

Now that the small talk is out of the way, let's talk action. Dead to Rights best feature is the never-before seen action elements that have been perfectly implemented into the gameplay. Jack can disarm foes barehanded, grab enemies and use them as human bullet shields, use his dog to attack enemies and fight hand to hand if things come to worse (which they will). Now before you criticize, believe me these are not some of the useless features in games, all of these elements give players strategy that seriously helps pull you out of dire straights.

Dead to Rights also is littered with mini-games. Surprisingly many of them are fun and add great depth to the action feel, especially when you're disarming bombs and one false move will blow you to smithereens. Others range from arm wrestling, to weight lifting, resisting torture, picking locks and

But where there's the good, there's always the bad lurking off in the corners somewhere; and I say this loud and clear: Dead to Rights is the most challenging, most difficult and sometimes cheapest game I've played all year. It's nearly impossible to play without getting pissed off and it nearly kills the fun factor too. Only play this if you're comfortable blowing your top often as well as dying often because you'll be doing a hell of a lot of it here. Without difficulty settings that are sorely needed in a game like this, you'll be dying many times even on the second and third levels. The biggest problem is hand to hand combat, the fighting system may seem cool at first, but surprisingly every part that I got angry at was a fighting part. I had no trouble overcoming the imposing odds in gun fights, but in hand to hand you're only given one defensive option to work with, and that's block, only thing is, the block doesn't work. Most annoying is the fact that your enemies swarm you relentlessly and their hits do about half the damage of yours. A few bosses can even kill you in mere seconds, one example was a convict in prison eight punches from him will kill you where as it will take nearly fifty to bring him down (He also has two invulnerable sidekicks constantly attacking you to just to make things more cheap.)

Don't expect this game to go easy on you even in the beginning, Dead to Rights won't spare anyone, not to mention some of the hardest boss fights ever, and I mean damn hard. This is another game that a difficulty setting could have promised this game the same stature of Max Payne, but alas laziness must have taken over, if there was a wake-up call to add difficulty settings, this is it. Yet even with its high frustration level however Dead to Rights is a hard as nails, action filled package just bursting at the seems with style and flair, so I am giving it thumbs up.