Dead to Rights: Reckoning E3 2005 Preshow Hands-On

Namco is throwing its support behind Sony's PSP with an upcoming handheld version of Dead to Rights, its successful shooting-based action game that stars down-on-his-luck detective Jack Slate. Subtitled Reckoning, the new game will offer a couple of new moves for Slate to apply against the throngs of Grant City's deadbeats. Despite these new moves and a new four-player competitive mode (a first for the series), our first hands-on time with Dead to Rights: Reckoning left us assured that anyone who's familiar with the previous games will be right at home with the shooting here.

The recent Dead to Rights II may have been numbered chronologically, but the game was actually set as a prequel to the original game. Given that, Reckoning is the first linear continuation of the series' storyline since the first game ended, and it sees Slate and his trusty K-9, Shadow, taking on a new wave of Grant City's underworld as they attempt to rescue a kidnapped informant named Maxine. The game will feature a dozen original levels as well as 13 weapons fans will be familiar with from previous games, including an assortment of pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles. Shadow is still on the scene, too, though in the PSP version you'll use him as a sort of one-hit-kill move when he runs in from offscreen.

Reckoning plays just about like the two console versions of Dead to Rights, with a few concessions being made for the PSP's limited control options. You can lock onto enemies with the right shoulder button, and in the absence of a right analog control, a quick tap of the same button will center the camera behind you. You can also crouch, back up against walls, and even perform a slow-motion dive as per Slate's abilities in the previous games. New this time around is the ability to use this dive to land and stay in a prone position, firing from the ground and giving your enemies a smaller target to aim at. Slate will also have a new roll move at his command that will help you evade enemy fire while you try to find a position with more cover. These new moves will surely help flesh out the combat experience, though we found that Reckoning felt very similar to the past games in the series during the few minutes we got to try it.

The action itself will be the same, but the numbers that pop up over slain thugs are a new addition to Dead to Rights. These numbers are part of an arcade-style scoring system the likes of which we don't see enough of in action games anymore. You'll rack up points for every kill you make, with your score being tallied at the end of every level. Aside from gaining bragging rights, if you earn enough points, you'll be able to unlock various aspects of a cheat menu that will make the game more replayable and more fun than before. The expected cheats like invulnerability and unlimited ammo will be available, but we also saw some novelty features like a superdeformed mode in which the heads and limbs of Slate and his enemies become comically oversized for your enjoyment. A Namco rep told us this scoring system composes part of the team's effort to make Reckoning easily playable for anyone who has only a few minutes at a time to play.

Reckoning will have one other feature that has us intrigued: four-player wireless support. The feature wasn't available at the time of our demo, but we're told it will be arranged in a deathmatch format, with up to four players going head-to-head in a variety of arenas for some quick competitive action. No more details were available on the multiplayer at the time of our demo, but we'll bring you more on this and other aspects of Dead to Rights: Reckoning as its release date approaches.