The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

After watching an amazing video LP, I put the strange reboot Dead to Rights: Retribution in my Gamefly list. Then, it showed up at my house and I played it.

I was glad to see what Jack Slate, and his faithful murderdog Shadow, were just as ridiculous as they were in the original game. Jack Slate is ridiculously violent for no good reason, and he and Shadow kill thousands upon thousands of people, while NPCs tell Jack Slate he is a good job, and that he has to “do what he’s good at,” which apparently involves strapping grenades to people’s backs and then throwing them into the air so they explode and shower blood on top of his grimacing, muscly body in order to intimidate other attackers. There are many pre-canned murder animations in the game you can get by punching dudes, and while they do repeat fairly often, they are all so ridiculous and stupid that it doesn’t really get too boring, especially since Jack Slate seems to jump into an alternate murder dimension where time and other enemies don’t exist to pull them off. The camera even gets a filter on it. It’s so stupid, and so badass.

The gameplay itself is kind of weird. It’s trying to be faithful to the original games, while updating them. However, the original games were of an era long past, where games tried to do absolutely everything. It has to be a brawler AND a shooter, and it feels super odd to see those two mechanics in the same game. It doesn’t completely fail, but it seems odd, too, especially when you get to the point where you have a supersoldier army coming after you, and they all want to run up and punch you instead of shoot you with their laser rifles. It just doesn’t make sense to be in so many fistfights at that point. Both the brawling and the shooting are a bit half-assed as well. Brawling uses very simple, repetitive combos, and while they’ve put a cover system in the game, because every third-person shooter is mandated by law to have one now, it doesn’t work well. You can shoot dudes, but it always feels a bit awkward.
They do make the shooting feel unique, though, by making Jack Slate unable to carry much ammo. You maybe have one spare clip of ammo for a gun at any time, max. This creates a fairly unique feel, as you’re constantly having to scrounge for ammo, or attempt to use Shadow and brawling to conserve what you have. It doesn’t completely work, but I appreciated the attempt to create something unique out of this mish-mash.

Honestly, my favorite parts of the game were the Shadow sections. Shadow is apparently the fucking Batman from Arkham Asylum, as he has to stealthy sneak around, dog-style, and take out enemies. He can even “listen to heartbeats,” which basically gives him Batman’s detective mode to see guys through walls. I enjoyed those stealth sections a lot in Arkham Asylum, and here, it’s no different, especially since they’re fairly short so as not to overstay their welcome. Plus, Shadow has his own ridiculous and stupid set of kill animations, though he doesn’t get to teleport to another dimension like Jack Slate does.

The game is so weird, but it does manage to be fun. I wouldn’t recommend anything more than a rental, or very budget purchase, but it’s a fairly good, if ridiculous and stupid crazy time. It even has Avatar awards, which shocked me since I though the game came out before that. But hey, my Avatar is now wearing a Grant City PD shirt. I’m sure nobody will even know what game that’s from, and that’s how I like it. But yeah, I enjoyed myself. It was certainly a good pallet-cleanser in between Dragon Age sessions. Expect a crazy, weird mish-mash, and you’ll have a decent time.