What was supposed to be a blockbuster winds up a mediocre mess that doesn't even live up to the original.
User Rating: 5.8 | Dead to Rights II XBOX
Lets get this outta the way right now...I LOVED the first Dead to Rights. It's one of my favorites, the game had so many fantastic ideas that no one had really seen before, such as the ability to quickly and brutally disarm enemies, not to mention to "customize" how you view it (slo-mo, multi-angles). Also, many things that were usually hang-ups, such as slo-mo diving, aiming, and taking human shields, were wonderfully refined. There were some shortcomings, such as weak but accessible hand to hand fighting, and a bit of an over abundance of mini-games, even though they helped add variety. Alright...enough about reminiscing about how fantastic the first one was, lets get to convincing why the second one sucks so damn much. Let's get to the story, or...lack of. It's something about resuing a guy with important files...and they'r in a vault in a church...that' right next to a biker den...ah, whatever, all I know is that it's bad and filled with sucky dialogue. They even try to suck dialogue right from better movies, like Pulp Fiction ("Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead!"). There seems to be a new actor for Jack, and with that, all the likeability he had in the first one is out the window. Too bad the horrible lines and stupid looking character model couldn't follow. For those who care, let's talk about the sound. I already talked about the abysmal voice acting, lets move on to weapon sounds. All is...pretty well here. Explosions sound appropriate, gunshots have a nice boom to them, and a nice liquid-y sound while moving in slow mo. But...nothing too noteworthy. Epecially the music, which is seems some 8 year old mixed on a keyboard while drunk off his dad's liquor cabinet. Bad techno and rock...let's just move on again... Graphics are...alright. The game looks kinda blurry, not as clean as the originals. Weapons look fantastic though, as do explosions. I didn't like the new Jack model, and there are too many repeated enemies. The animations are good, mostly, but not for where they're important. The highlight of the first one, the disarms, are now quick, choppy, and they took out the ability to slow mo and change the camera angles! Overall, disapointing pretty much. Let;s get right down to the gameplay now. Everything works fine and responsively. Aiming, shooting, diving, fighting...but none of it is all the fun. And many promised features have been cut. I can't find an online link, but in an issue of Gameinformer, they stated there would be an arcade mode. Which, would have definitely added some replay incentive in a classic sense of racking up more points and getting more and more combos...thus unlocking more crazy crap. Then their was the feature that was supposed to be the "cool" new thing, and that was the ability to aim at 2 enemies simultaneously. Cut. Also, there was supposed to be a robust, cinematic fighting engine in place, not to mention spontaneous weaponry from the environment. Nada. There was also a 360 degree awareness system to be in place, that would allow back hands and side kicks. Nope. *Sigh* I really don't see how this could've happened... I've never given a game a review like this before, but it's just I expected what they told us. And, we got a watered down game that doesn't even live up to it's 3 year old predecessor. Pass on this one.
