If you're not a fan of all those Die Hard movies or anything that involves a lone gunman overcoming inconceivable odds to conquer a well-armed gang of henchman then you should probably stop reading now. Anyone who even has a passing interest in mindless violence can read on but do stop me if you've heard all this before. Dead to Rights is the story of a K9 cop who's on a quest to clear his name after being wrongly imprisoned. It's up to you to collect evidence whilst sorting out the good guys from the occasional bad girl over fifteen increasingly pulse-racing levels. Published by Namco in the US it was some time before Electronic Arts stepped in to handle the distribution in Europe. It's here now though and though it sounds like a lot of action clichés packed onto a GameCube disc it might also be a good game, let's see…

Graphics:

Visually Dead to Rights is a bit of a mixed bag but it's fair to say that most of the contents are well above average and rather pleasing. The environments, for example, are well designed and realised with enough variation to escape the repetition trap that so many of these types of games tend to fall into. There are some repeated locations but they are so well woven into the story you'll hardly notice. There are special effects in abundance too with explosions shooting particles at the screen and fire, looking realistic enough for you to start feeling the heat. While this is an achievement in itself the real bonus here is that it causes absolutely no screen slowdown, something that the PS2 version does suffer from on occasions. Animation wise the characters can sometimes appear a little wooden and the facial expressions are not all they should or could be which is a shame but is no doubt linked to the lack of slowdown.

The real highlights though are the FMV cut screens, which do a fine job of linking the levels together and pushing forward the plot. These really could be taken from a CGI movie version of the game and the intro movie (from which some of the screenshots are taken) is a hugely enjoyable teaser for what's about to come. Finally there's the camera which, most of the time, gives you a great deal of freedom though it does occasionally get stuck behind a wall as you're trying to do battle with several henchman decreasing your chances of success somewhat.

Sound:

Voice acting for games is generally average at best as few developers can afford a top Hollywood cast to fill out their lead characters. Fortunately the voice artist of Jack Slate manages to convey a great deal of emotion and just the right balance of law keeper and renegade cop to keep you listening to his dialogue. Everyone appears to be 'hamming it up' for the video gaming audience although most are such minor parts it tends not to really matter.

The soundtrack is much better with the composer clearly influenced by the Die Hard series of movies. This means that the music, which accompanies your every move, creates a real sense of tension so that you generally anticipate danger long before you ever see it. It's clear that this was an important aspect for the developers and once you've spent some time with the game you'll appreciate the quality of the audio which really does go a long way to enhance the overall gameplay.

Gameplay:

At the core of Dead to Rights is a rather frantic third person shooter. While it's true that there are an impressive number of weapons and enemies to mow down it's so much more than we've come to expect. For starters you don't always have to pick people off from a distance and it's occasionally a better strategy to sneak up behind them and simply disarm them. Once you've done this you can then kill them or else use them as a human shield, the latter being very useful on a number of occasions. Changing weapons is simple too but as you only have a limited supply of ammo it's usually wise to shoot in short bursts rather than keep your finger on the fire button. Targeting is all done automatically although your chosen victim needs to be circled in red before your weapons are truly effective.

In addition to all the guns, rocket launchers and just about everything else you can get your hands on there's also your trusty dog who can be used to maul a gunman and retrieve their weapon. This can be very useful when you're low on ammo but is only available when your 'Shadow Icon' is full which is fuelled by the amount of shooting going on. You'll also have to call on your K9 sidekick when you're required to sniff out explosives on one of the many objective led sections. These are all reasonably simple but the fact that you're usually against a timer whilst escaping a burning building or a bomb counting down means you have considerably less time to take out enemies before they spot you.

Occasionally you'll have to solve or beat one of the many mini-games in order to progress and while these games could be seen as a distraction from the real action they're actually short enough to be enjoyable. They're also infrequent enough for you to actually look forward to the next one although there's some repetition where the only real difference is that the various components will be faster or you'll have a shorter time limit. They start off with relatively simple tasks such as lock picking which involves you stopping each of the locks barrels in the correct position. You'll quickly progress to more complicated challenges though and controlling the dancer by hitting the correct combination of buttons took us ages. Others include beating prison records for weight lifting and punch bags that have you rapidly pressing 'A' and 'B' as fast as your fingers will allow. All of these have comprehensive instructions before too making the whole exercise relatively seamless.

Playability:

If like me you tend to thumb through the manual while the game loads you could feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of pages given over to different combat and attack moves that Jack Slate and his trusty K9 are capable of. Fortunately this is all explained in the first level that plays out a little like a tutorial mode. You'll also get instructions when you enter a new mini-game which does make the going a little easier as they're not all as obvious as they could be. Overall Dead to Rights is one of those titles that you become very comfortable with after an hour or so but leave the game for a while and try and return to it and you soon discover that you need to play through the whole first level again or you find yourself being shot to pieces on a regular basis.

Controls:

A: Shoot/Punch.
B: Kick.
X: Action.
Y: Dive.
L: Crouch.
R: Dodge/Block.
Z: Manual Targeting.
C: Camera.
D-Pad: Menu Control.
Control Stick: Movement.

Lifespan:

Once you've been through the whole game once you're unlikely to do so again for some time, but with around eight hours of action it's slightly longer than your average game of this nature. Game purists, on the other hand, will no doubt want to unlock all the mini-games which will require exploring every inch of the game in search of those elusive paths that you just happened to overlook the first time around. On the subject of the mini-games the developers have wisely added an option letting you revisit any of the many three-minute challenges at any time as long as you've already played them in the main game.

Final Say:

I can't tell you how many games I've played in this genre and even the GameCube's short life has spawned half a dozen or so, which have tried but mostly failed in their attempt to make a game both exciting and enjoyable. Dead to Rights though appears to have the right amount of each gaming component so that it's the closest yet to a big budget action movie on a home console. That's not to say that it's without its problems but these are so minor that even the most critical gamer can overlook them.