Despite the fact that this third-person shooter/brawler franchise is making its first outing on the current generation of consoles, Dead To Rights: Retribution feels curiously old-fashioned in many ways.
Its determination to shepherd you along a single path and lack of an online element, along with a general roughness around the edges, bring to mind the days when games were mostly played in arcades. However, once you learn to accept its foibles, it does provide an entertaining experience.
It casts you as hard-bitten vice cop Jack Slate, struggling to maintain order in the near-derelict Grant City, with the help of his faithful police dog, Shadow. The plot, involving the inevitable conspiracy, is every bit as cheesy as that basic premise, but at least it isn't allowed to impinge on the gameplay, which is good enough to rescue Dead To Rights: Retribution from otherwise deserved obscurity.
Most of the game is about third-person shooting, generally from behind cover (the cover system works, but feels more than clunky when compared with the likes of Splinter Cell: Conviction), and in particular lining up head-shots, which build up your Focus meter, which lets you slow down time temporarily when outnumbered. When enemies break cover, you can take them on with your fists – a particularly satisfying disarm move solves the perennial problem of third-person shooters: that when enemies get too close, the camera can't move quickly enough for you to see where they are. In this case, you can rip their guns out of their hands and then launch a bout of fisticuffs; once enemies are sufficiently weakened, you can trigger finishing moves, which also replenish your Focus meter.
The fighting engine, which lets you build up combos, is pretty good, and the weaponry can't be faulted – ammo is in fairly short supply, so you need to keep moving and pick it up from dead enemies. There are also a number of stealth sequences in which you play as Shadow, who has a fearsome ability to sneak up on enemies and kill them, but (unlike Jack Slate), can't survive taking more than a couple of bullets.
The critical among us will find plenty to gripe about in Dead To Rights: Retribution – the camera is often too tight, making it difficult to see who is shooting at you (although that does at least encourage you to keep moving around rather than cowering behind cover); although Shadow moves fairly convincingly, he seems to float about an inch above the ground; and context-sensitive commands such as snapping to cover or disarming enemies require you to face in exactly the correct direction, although as the game progresses, you learn how to time your button-presses correctly.
In other words, Dead To Rights: Retribution lacks a considerable amount of polish compared to what we have recently become used on the PS3 and Xbox 360. But it has a very well thought-out learning curve and isn't afraid to put you in hair-raising situations involving large amounts of highly skilled enemies, so it gives you a great impression of being a one-man (and his dog) army – not unlike old arcade classics such as, for example, Double Dragon. If that appeals, you should enjoy it; if polish and neatness are the main assets you seek in games, you'd best steer clear.
