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Sweet and Sour

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: September 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

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 have this game even though it hasn't been released. Awsome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 21
Date: August 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Through a contact I have I was able to aquire this game over a month before it has come out. This game is incredible the graphics are very smooth and the framerate is excellent. The slow motion characteristics are similar to Max Payne but they are more improved. This game has allot more to offer then that though. For starters the story is deep,dark and very intriqute You are able to grab enemies and use them as human sheilds for protection. You also have a dog named shadow in your weapons arsenal who you can sick on enemies and sniff out bombs with. But the coolest part of the game is the disams. When you have no weapon you can rush an enemy who has one and disarm him in several different ways which all end up with you executing him (or her.)You start out with four standard disarms and unlock more as you go along. You can set the disarms to random or manually decide which one you will use and you can slow down the camera to watch as well. The mini games such as weight lifting, a speed bag, and bomb disarmment are also cool. The only draw back is that when you are first learning the controls it is hard to control the camera. This game has no difficulty setting for XBOX so I recommend only serious gamers attempt challenging this game. The average time to beat this game is 18 hours, if you are really good at these types of games it can be beat in 8 to 9 hours. It took me 9:42. If you are a serious gamer order this game now! If you have a gamecube or ps2 don't worry it is coming to both systems with a diffuculty setting.

Packs A Wallop, But Seriously Flawed

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: October 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

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.

Quite possibly the worst game I've ever played.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First and foremost, it looks like a commercialized Max Payne rip-off. I love Max Payne and I wouldn't mind if a game was using the same formula, but this took the formula and modified it for the more "sell-out" approach. The first FMV sequence was not the kind of thing I'd want to see in a game.

Secondly are the controls. Horrible. I know it probably doesn't mean a whole lot when a PC gamer says the controls are horrible for a console shooter, but the controls are to the point of being almost unplayable. If this were its controls were its only flaw, it could have been redeemed, but alas, it has much bigger problems.

Next on the list is the scaling of difficulty. There are no selectable skill levels, and the progression of difficulty is a pure absurdity. On one level you might get hit a few times, on the next level you'll get killed about twenty times before you finally lose patience with the game. Also, the dog, while a good idea for game mechanics, is a retarded implementation. The controls for him are nearly as bad as they are for the main character.

Another gaping problem is the camera and locking scheme. I'd say that 90% of the time you trace a lock on someone, it's not a person who any reasonable human would want to fire at first. You'll be flanking more than you'll be hitting actual targets. The way the camera always goes to the most inconvenient angles also helps for enemies to sneak up on you unnoticed and kill you with one shot. Sickening.

So if you have some extra money, I'd suggest spending it on Max Payne or Max Payne 2. Overall I was greatly unimpressed by the gameplay. It was worse than Pariah, yet somehow gaming magazines rated it a 9 and Max Payne 2 a 7, claiming Dead To Rights was an original, classic game while Max Payne 2 was a cheap rip-off.

Avoid this game at all costs.

Shoot and fight, and then.... shoot and fight

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

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

Max Payne clone -- stay away

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 22
Date: August 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Well, having played and LOVED Max Payne, I was totally looking forward to this game, seeing that it was being compared with Max Payne in several ways, but having played it now I only want to play Max again to get the bad taste out of my mouth that Dead to Rights has left with me. This game is merely a clone, and not a good one. I wish I would have read some of the game reviews for buying it, because they would have warned me to stay away. For example, I have the latest issue of GameNow in front of me, and they give the game a C+, and warn how bad the controls are and how completely way too difficult the game is. Their headline quote says it all: "Frustrating and immensely difficult." I don't play games to pull my hair out, so I can in no way recommend this game, as much as I was looking forward to another game with the cool style and fun gameplay as Max.

Not bad, but not what it should have been

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: August 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When comparing the three systems neck and neck and side-by-side Xbox has taken a while to get up the standards that I'm holding the system to based on Microsoft's over inflated system stats and the rather blatant dishonesty about the systems actual performance. Its still not there yet, I am still at a state of "prove it" with Microsoft, though the games (and controllers, thankfully) have been getting much better since launch, Dead to Rights is a prime example of why I don't think the XBox is the most powerful console of the bunch. Maybe its developer laziness but there is a lot of Xbox games that have these types of flaws. Before I get into what is wrong with this game, however, let me address why I like it despite its many flaws.
The game has a very strong story to it, granted its nothing new or revolutionary, we've seen this good-cop-gets-framed-breaks-out-of-jail-and tries-to-prove-himself-innocent in countless movies in the past. This game is kind of a mix of Max Payne and the Fugitive. Although there is nothing innovative or revolutionary about the story it is still very good, and it flows together very well. It has brilliant dialogue, and great voice acting.
The game play is where this game really shines. The great gunplay gave me a huge adrenaline rush. It's not easy for a gamer of my tastes. I don't play games like this very often, so I'm not terribly good at them, or wasn't. I like how you HAVE TO use your environment against your enemies, from having to hide behind counters, and walls to tossing flammable canisters at the enemies, and shooting them at just the right moment, even taking hostages and using them a human shields. Once you get the hang of how to use your environment to save your hide the difficulty drops significantly. This game is very fun to play.
Sadly it is not the prettiest game to watch. For a game that is so heavily reliant on story and dialogue the fact that the character's lack facial animations during in game real time cut-scenes is a sore disappointment. This, being an XBox game, should not have been an issue. Also, the only good polygon model for this game is Slate and Shadow. Every other character in this game looks utterly terrible. I expect much more from Namco. The cinematic feel of the game that they were trying for suffered greatly because of this. The presentation to this otherwise great game is so bad that I cannot justify giving it more than three stars. It may play like a next gen console game, but it looks like a slightly improved N64 game, blurry textures included! Its sad really because this game could have been much better than it is, especially with its presentation. Thankfully for Namco, the game is still a blast to play. It would have been nice if the characters had facial animation, and lip-synching to back up its story.

Dead On Arrival

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: September 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

OVERALL REVIEW: Someone compared this to Max Payne then was scolded by many others who said they were nothing alike. I agree.

Max Payne was great.

Dead To Rights was...returned the very next morning after I bought it.

Dead On Arrival is a better name for this poor excuse for a game. In fact, this game is so horrible that instead of wasting my time reviewing it I'm going to review the can of peaches sitting on my counter. Trust me, it's more entertaining and certainly more innovative.

GAMEPLAY: Well, when the peaches are taken out of the can I will be able to play a nice game of Kick The Can with my neighbor's kids. That was *the* game to play when I was a youngin'. With the peaches in, I can hurl the can at people below me (I live on the third floor) for a good amount of entertainment...until the cops come. Given that this is a high crime area they'll probably have other things to attend to. Throw in running up the stairs, breaking down the door and you have a good two hours of solid entertainment before the feds pick you up. Nice.

VISUALS: It's Del Monte, so what do you expect? There's a pretty picture of a bowl of peaches, which I'm sure are nicer and larger than what I'll get when I pop this baby open. I do have to say the ribbed look of the can is getting old. That's been around for what, thirty, forty, fifty years? You'd think that after all this time people would demand more from a can. Still, that's one pretty label. And I really appreciate the nutritional information. I've been trying to lose some weight and knowing how many calories I'm going to down comes in handy.

SOUND: Here's where I'm in a bind. If I shake the can (getting some sound out of it) I stand a chance of ruining the peaches. But if I don't, then I won't be getting the most out of my can. But can I honestly give a fair review without doing this?

I think not.

Let's see...oh yeah. There's some squishing going on here...Nothing too loud, very soft. I could imagine this being soothing after a while. If I were to throw in a mod chip I bet I would get the occasional clink along with the nice "squish squish." Still, because I had to modify the can I'm giving it a one star. Next time Del Monte should mix it up a bit and leave the pit in there. That'll liven up the sound and raise the sound score!

Dead to Rights: The next Max Payne?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: September 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

NO! plain and simple...this game was lacking in many different places. This is one game that you should definatley stay away from. First off the most annoying thing is the Right Thumbstick(I bet alot of you out there know what Im talking about)when you push the Right Thumbstick you move/look left. Doesent sound that bad? Well believe me once you start playing the game youll know how annoying it'll be. The gunplay in the game is ok but can get very repetitive and doesent have as much of a solid story/mystery like Max Payne. When he fights without a gun it gets boring quickly because there arent that many combos/special moves. Also all the side missions that you have to do ae just plain boring and some are also very hard like the bomb diffusing one, or the gym one. Heres my review of the game 1 star bad, 10 stars good:

Plot:
4 stars

Fighting
with gun: 7 stars
without gun: 3 stars

Types of weapons(how many you have):
5 stars

Side Missions:
1-3stars

Bullet Time:
2 stars

Aiming/Targeting
5 stars

Controls
2 stars(I would go higher but it's that #amn right joystick)

So all in all you should rent Dead to Rights at most, or you could buy it, and then sell it back or to something else. Hope this review helped.

Frustration Guaranteed!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10

I'd like to start off by saying that the "Failed" screen of the game (equivalent to Game Over) simply isn't pretty enough for the amount of times you're going to see it. If you can overlook the several flaws it presents you'll be rewarded with the best action\shooting game since perhaps Max Payne.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics of the game aren't all that special, the nicest thing that I have nothiced was perhaps the shading on the characters throughout the game. The game's graphics' value is diminished by some low-level models such as the cars on the streets or even some of the buildings themselves which are paved with mostly average textures. If bump-mapping would have been used this game could have really have had impressive looks even on the not so well designed levels.

Sound: 7/10
Truly and honestly the sound of this game is one of the draw backs, not for the actual sound effects themselves but for the somewhat annoying music. As far as the voice acting goes, it's obvious that they tried to maintain the melodramatic Max Payne feel to it with not as great success, for at times the voice seems to lack a sense of feeling, or seems downright out of place or badly timed.

Gameplay: 8/10
By far this is where the game truly shines. The game's gameplay is very similar to that of Max Payne, but it has an extra Kung-Fu twist to it. Both of the games feature a slow-mo mode however Dead to Rights also features some really awsome disarms and human shield abilities. Despite the entertaining Max Payne style fighting\shooting system DtR suffers from some major camera issues, you can only pivot the angle around the character (left or right) but not up or down, and often (especially when in halls or other small spaces) the camera become a real nuisance making enemies able to kill you with ease, thus having to restart the phase all over again. And although that may not sound like a big deal it is. The game's difficulty is simply too high, and there is no difficulty level selection. This may (and will) frustrate many gamers and turn some away completely from the game especially the average gamer. But some of the hardcore gamers may welcome the challenge. In the short time I have been playing the game I have seen the "Failed" screen about 20-35 times thus from that you could deduct an idea of how difficult the game is (or not...).

Pros and Cons
+Lengthy game
+Feels very similar to Max Payne
+Control scheme seems to work out nicely
+Great gameplay
+Cool intro movie
-Too friggin hard
-Bothersome camera angles
-Average sound and graphics
-Max Payne clone

Final Words:
In the end despite of all of Dead to Right's flaws I'd say that the game is worth of every (or almost) attention, I'm not telling you that it's a must have but that you might want to rent it or borrow it from a friend. But I can guarantee that almost everyone who plays this game will get frustrated more that once or twice.

Overall: 7.5
Letter grade: D

--Akira

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