Dead to Rights II ... enjoyable..

User Rating: 7 | Dead to Rights II PS2
A brawny, tough-looking guy pulls his truck over by a gas station convenience store to pick up a six-pack. As soon as he opens the door, a masked guy from behind the door locks a gun to his forehead. Pumping action techno music starts playing in the back. There's a robbery happening and there are multiple masked miscreants in the store, throwing around the shop keeper. In a blink of an eye, Mr. Tough Guy twists the bad guy's arm and pulls his gun out, uses him as a human shield and starts shooting everyone else, jumping from the main entrance into the safe area behind the counter. There's another guy right there with a baseball bat, so our guy takes the bat from him and finishes him off with it. He just narrowly misses a blade thrown at him from someone in the aisle in the front of the counter. He gets out of there and just when the masked man throws a few more blades him, he starts running towards him and starts shooting. The bullets rip through the blades, deflecting them away from our Mr. Tough Guy, all in lovely, blurry slow motion, allowing him to jump on and overpower him to pull his gun out. He gets up and then aims the gun at the final robber who's now holding the shopkeeper hostage, trying to escape from the scene just outside the door of the store, with a gun aimed at our guy. Out of nowhere, a menacing Alsatian leaps at the guy and chews the gun out of his hand. Distracted by the canine capriole, the robber doesn't get the chance to see his final meet with metal coming from inside the shop and passing through his skull leaving a puff of blood in the air as his carcass descends to the ground. Our guy gets out of the shop, shows the stupefied shopkeeper the six-pack, and hands over the money for it. Both Jack (our guy) and Shadow (the dog) walk to their truck as the shopkeeper stares at the wreck that was once his source of livelihood
If you're the kind who'd enjoy each and every frame of a cheesy good guy, tough guy type stuff just like what I was just talking about, then Dead to Rights II is the game for you. No nonsense, merciless killing of an unlimited number of henchmen who keep coming at you from anywhere and everywhere.

A respected judge in the city has stumbled upon a secret crime syndicate that operates throughout the city, sending a few people where they just don't wanna be. Thanks to their friends, the judge gets a few sleepless nights in a location far away from home that's known only to a few people who still want things to go their own way. The judge's close friend, our man Jack Slate, wants to get him back of course, and is now willing to read out the final rights to several hundreds of bad guys who try to stand in his (and his dog's) way.

Everything you need and expect is in this game: using your enemies as a human shield, jumping in all directions, slow motion bullet time , and an obedient dog to help you out when you're unable to do a particular task. I love Namco games because they all look great, and are so much fun to play. This game is no exception. The game looks fabulous, right from the glittery, neon-lit alleys of the night clubs to the rusty junkyards and garages. The game is even more easier to play, because even though its essentially a simple point and shoot game, there's auto-aim, so you don't even really have to point in the true sense of the word. Just hit the R1 button to select your target, and fire away till he falls down and disappears. Which is one of the problems in the game the dead guys disappear almost instantly and that doesn't look too great. Also, if you're like me, going around firing the pistols non stop, then you'll constantly need to pick up ammo left behind by the dead guys. The shotgun has good damage, but it doesn't appeal to me cuz I need rapid fire. The machine gun rocks. In some areas, you need to shed all automatic weapons and resort to fighting mano-a-mano, using your fists, baseball bats, or wooden planks with nails on it. Yep, that stuff can really hurt!
The other problem with the game is that the dog and the bullet time share the same meter. Don't use the dog too much, or you won't have too much bullet time left, and vice versa.

Finally, the biggest problem with the game is that this is all there is to it. Just go into a room full of baddies, open fire, reload the guns, continue firing, use the dog sometimes, kill the boss, proceed to the next level. If you're looking for a different experience in each level, you're not going to get anything other than different backgrounds. And different but nevertheless cheesy one-liners at the end of each cutscene. In short, its like any other random direct-to-video tough guy flick that gathers dust on the video store shelves till a bunch of never-gonna-be's walk in holding a six-pack in their hands.

Dead to Rights II is fun to play, but not for too long..