Dead to Rights, Max Payne's forgotten younger brother. This game was originally released as an X-box exclusive, but Namco decided to re-release it for PC, PS2, and obviously GCN. Dead to Rights is a game about a police officer struck deeply and out for revenge, no matter what it takes. In Dead to Rights, you play as Jack Slate, a K-9 officer in Grant City. He is called out to a disturbance at the construction site for a new subway station. Once he arrives he realizes the person murdered was his father. Jack doesn't know why, but he's going to catch the man who did it. By the time he catches up with him, the man is already dead. Another man who killed him shoots Jack and frames him for the murder. Thinking Jack killed him and then tried to commit suicide, he is sent to prison. Your next task is to break out and find the people who did this to you. But as you discover, this goes far deeper than just cold-blooded murder. Dead to Rights is a fast-paced shoot 'em up game. You're a one man army, and no one is going to stand in your way. In the game you can pick up a variety of weapons from dual .45s to an AK-47 and even a rocket launcher. There's no time to reload, once your out of ammo Jack quickly throws the gun away and reveals a new weapon. Even after you use up your hundreds of rounds, you're not helpless. Remember, Jack is a K-9 officer and his trusty dog Shadow is always at your side. You can use him to attack enemies and the best part is after he mauls them to death, he returns the gun to you. Now is that handy or what? But once you use him, Shadow has to rest for a while. This is my favorite part: disarms. No matter what the enemy has, you can disarm them in fantastic ways. You can simply snap their neck or my favorite which is called "Twist and Shoot." In this move, Jack jumps onto his hands, grabs the attacker's head with his feet, twists his body sending the victim to the floor while he grabs the gun aims back and puts a bullet in the top of his head without even looking. Too fast? No problem! Press X to see it in slow motion and change the camera angle with B. There's not just guns you can use. A fun added touch is to grab a fire extinguisher, chuck it at a group of enemies, shoot it, and watch the fireworks. Besides running and shooting, Namco threw in a couple mini games to mix it up a little. One such game is pressing buttons to get one of the other characters, Hildy (an exotic dancer), to bust out some sexy dance moves on the runway to distract the bouncers so you can sneak out. Though, that's the only racy mini-game in Dead to Rights. Of course this game had anything but a lack of blood. Though it can be deactivated, this game is filled with the stuff. Sometimes you wonder why Jack doesn't fall down because of the large pools collecting on the ground. As for controls, Control Stick handles movement. You can Auto-target with R and cycle through multiple targets with the C-stick. Z button will activate manual aiming mode. Control pad will cycle through the weapons you're carrying. With X you can open doors and such, though if near an enemy you can grab them and use them as a human shield. With L you can crouch. Y let's you perform a dive, if you hold it down you can do a slow motion dive and if you have an automatic shotgun, that group of five enemies is toast. While unarmed, A serves as punch and B is kick. Different combinations of these two buttons will yield different combos to take down those baddies. Unfortunately, the graphics for Dead to Rights were a bit of a disappointment. They didn't look nearly as polished as they were for X-box. Possibly because Namco rushed the port to GCN. The polygon count on the characters seem kind of low, and I think the textures aren't as good as they could be. Another thing that is a little disappointing is that during the in-game cut-scenes, the character mouths don't move. Also, their hands are always fists, which is similar to the days of N64. The actual CG movies do looke better, though some of the animations in them look too unnatural and really takes away from it. Though graphics aren't everything, and this can easily be looked past. Though I would have liked it better if Namco had taken some more time to improve the graphics more. The sound is decent, though not as good as it could be. Most of the sound effects are good and fit the game well, from every gun sound to the explosions. However, some sounds aren't as varied as they should be. One example is as you run through the rain in some of the levels, every time you step you make the exact same splashing noise. Though small, things like this can become very annoying, very quickly. But don't let this get you down. Overall, Dead to Rights offers about 6-7 hours of gameplay. This is shorter than most, but it is still a great game to play. If you ever just feel like overkill, this is a great game. Especially when you're angry. If you're ever angry, playing this game will make you feel better, gauranteed. It's just a great action game that you can sink your teeth into right from the get-go. Once you beat it, then you can skip to any chapter you want to play your favorite levels. There's also a slew of difficulty levels if you're up to the challenge. I think Dead to Rights is a really fun game. I enjoy action games, and this one provides some of the best. The huge mix of different weapons really adds to the fun. I also enjoy the unique gameplay features with the disarms and using people as shields, etc. The mini games also add a nice touch of variation in case you ever get tired of wasting bad-guys. Overall, it's just a really fun game. If you're looking for action, seriously consider this game. It will surely satisfy the cravings of a true action junkie. Or maybe you just like shooting? Then this game is great for you too. The excellent story also adds to the value of this game. It's just plain fun.
Sporting easily one of the best anti-heroes in a long while, Dead to Rights comes in kicking ass from the opening cinematic, with an absolutely balls to the wall hero and the best sidekick in a long time. Namco's game... Read Full Review
I love Dead to Rights, it is one of my favorite games still. I first heard about this game in one of my Game Cube magazines and i thought it looked pretty cool. I was thinking about getting the game but i soon forgot ... Read Full Review
