Dead To Rights 2

Written by Tom Clare in PS2 Game Reviews, Friday 12 December, 2008

It's hard to shake the feeling that Dead To Rights 2 was conceived a generation or so too late. Little of Namco's usual style, flair and assured quality are in evidence, meaning the player is left to battle with dated gameplay mechanics and a half-baked story that's defined by its anonymous cast. When mixed with a host of half-hearted innovations, you're left to wonder quite why they bothered making it in the first place.

The games blurb assures us there's some form of story surrounding rogue cop Jack Slade, but in reality DTR2 is, at the end of the day, a rather hollow third-person shoot 'em up that challenges the player to grind through 47 very samey levels. Perhaps 'challenge' is the wrong word however; the 'tactics' you'll employ on the first level will hardly have evolved at all as you breeze through scores of forgettable missions holding the aim button and hammering fire.

It's like Syphon Filter never happened; there is no option to manually aim any of the weapons so the joys of picking-off targets skilfully at a distance (or indeed skilfully at close range) are absent. Any hints of tactical play also depart as there is often little point in seeking cover due to the simplistic all-guns-blazing approach many enemies adopt to get around this. Even the uncomplicated action you are left with proves a hassle, as the camera (operated via the right analogue stick) more often than not stubbornly refuses to do as you command. The lock-on feature is also appalling - routinely ignoring enemies directly in front of you in favour of ones far-off over Jack's shoulder that are often obscured by scenery.

These problems are compounded further in the woeful boss fights. Much like the levels themselves, all the bosses are exactly alike - not only can these figures survive multiple Molotov cocktails and a barrage of shotgun fire, they inexplicably go through phases of being indestructible. Matching wits with these figures wouldn't be so bad if you weren't hampered by the ceaseless respawning of goons who pin you down almost constantly and make locating and locking on to the boss an absolute agony.

Namco may claim that Jack has a fairly decent array of moves at his disposal, but the fact of the matter is you'll use hardly any of them. These party pieces include rolling across parts of the scenery, performing slow-motion dives (think “bullet-time”, only crap) and the numerous cool though essentially unhelpful disarm/finishing moves you can use at close quarters. Jack's dog Shadow turns out to be the best extra by some way as he can actually prove quite an effective helper. After you lock onto a target, you can summon Shadow to charge and kill them, as well as returning to you with their weapon - very useful if you're running low on ammo.

The best parts of the game are the hand-to-hand combat levels where guns are off the agenda and it is your job simply to bash goons with your fists, bottles, baseball bats and anything else you find along the way. Granted, using Shadow really exposes the doziness of the A.I. as you close to quite a small distance before setting your pal on the stationery fools, but even in the few levels you get to play like this, it's a lot better executed than the shooting bits.

Given the team behind DTR2, it's surprising how ordinary it is graphically. The early club and outdoor levels are really quite naff looking, and even though the environments start to look a little better by the halfway point, there's virtually nothing to interact with in the levels save the odd barrel that can be blown up (in the event you can get a lock on it that is). Jack seems a touch bulky and cumbersome for a lead character, whilst elsewhere the enemies are samey and unimpressive-looking whilst even the FMV's seem noticeably low-rent and riddled with clichés.

Other than the main story there's the amusingly-titled 'Instant Action' mode which closely mimics the Story setup in that you're placed in a sequence of levels and charged with the task of (yep, you guessed it) killing a near-unending stream of goons that are thrown your way. Whilst there are extra difficulty levels and weapons to unlock, it's unlikely you'll inconvenience yourself - the guns are utterly unexciting and the game itself so utterly unengaging, that the prospect of dragging yourself through to see the credits even once is unlikely.

Dead To Rights 2 is the one of the worst titles Namco have come out with for years. Whilst there is some shoot 'em up action to enjoy, it's only at the very most base level, with the superior (speaking relatively) melee combat having to play second fiddle. With several fairly major technical foibles, the tacked-on feel that accompanies all the new ideas and a general lack of imagination to either the games narrative or the level-design means its problems far outweigh the positives. One to avoid.
OVERALL: 4/10

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