Dead to Rights: Reckoning
We reckon it's crap.
Published: July 4, 2005
It's hard to believe that a completely different developer with a decent track record could somehow manage to make a game worse than an already horrible game, but that's exactly what UK-based developer Rebellion managed to do with Namco's John Woo-inspired cop-and-dog shooter.
Dead to Rights: Reckoning mirrors the events and locations of the recently released Dead to Rights 2 with similarly disastrous results. The "story" of a high-ranking government official's daughter getting kidnapped is so half-assed that it feels like something out of an 8-bit game. A handful of imbecilic snippets of text after killing the clichéd end-level boss are literally nothing more than "It was an ambush; They were waiting for me" bits so bad it's hard to know if you should laugh or cry.
DTR2 may have been a lackluster sequel to a game already hurting for more depth, but at least it had a little strategy in place. Cover had to be used, and ample use of both analog sticks had to be employed to keep enemies at bay. Without a second analog stick, the PSP version must rely on two very key elements to keep enemies in view: auto-targeting and a lock-on camera.
Both are botched so badly that it's a wonder how this game even got approved by Sony.
The targeting system manages to actually be worse than GTA's and regularly ignores enemies behind or two feet in front of one-liner-popping hero Jack Slate in favor of an enemy across the room. It's bad enough that you have to cycle through them with either the up button on the d-pad or by rapidly tapping the R shoulder button, but it's as if the game actually tries to pick enemies other than the one you need to hit.
The camera is equally bad, sluggishly sweeping around to capture action a few seconds after you've already dispatched enemies behind you. You can manually center things by tapping both shoulder buttons, but again, it's such a slow spin-around that it's almost better to just slo-mo dive backwards and hope the enemy is somewhat close so you don't waste your slo-mo juice and ammo trying to hit them.
The same basic dive-and-shoot gameplay from the previous DTR games is here, but it's taken to a ridiculous degree. There are no animations for climbing over objects, so you just dive to and fro, sometimes clipping through objects a bit, usually just buffeting against an invisible bounding box while trying to hop over a railing or something. It looks retarded to see Jack dive over a table when he could just step over it or a car hood or a set of steps, but then retarded is pretty much par for the course here.
Like the other games, Jack's not alone, he has his faithful canine pal Shadow with him, and apparently Shadow's ability to teleport in and clip through any and all solid objects to attack enemies that would amusingly present itself in DTR2 is hilariously intact here. Since instantly Bamfing Shadow over to enemies kills all but bosses and gives you back some slo-mo juice, you'll probably use him quite a bit, showing you over and over again how the dog transcends the limits of physical reality until you almost feel sorry for the development team.
When the game isn't forcing you to fight against the lock-on system or camera, it tends to work rather well, but the game can be played through the first time in the span of a little more than an hour. AN HOUR. I understand the PSP isn't a home console, but making a game that short, and as cookie cutter as it is (kill enemies, walk forward into a hotspot to trigger more enemies behind you, fight camera to get it around in time to lock on, kill enemies, enter next room, repeat seven or eight times, fight boss, watch 10 second cut scene, move on to next level) is just plain lazy.
There are more modes, including a survival-style trip through things and harder difficulty levels if you haven't punished yourself enough as it is, but even some wireless multiplayer (using unlockable enemy skins, no less!) can't keep the game from being a very poor amount of content for your $40.
The game does manage to look halfway decent, though, and may even give the PS2 version a run for its money visually, though that's probably a combination of the PSP's screen and the source textures that just work better at PSP resolution, but the framerate manages to stay fairly constant and things are lit and textured nicely for a portable game. It's like a showcase for what a quick and dirty port can look like while simultaneously demonstrating how GBA-level production values just won't fly here.
The audio's about the same, both passing and working on the level of the PS2 version, but showing how poor across the board it really is otherwise. There's no voice acting, and the sound effects are mainly limited to time slowdown when diving, various weapons fire, and that's about it. The music is just as banal and shallow as the PS2 version's pointless little loops, and there's little reason to whip out your headphones and listen to the game.
This is a bad, bad, bad game. It's nice to see that a port can be accomplished so easily, and the sharing of resources means if you've played through DTR2 on home consoles, you'll instantly recognize levels in the PSP version (y'know because they're the exact same much of the time), but it's an abomination of a product that wasn't really all that solid to begin with. When a game that depends on a lock-on system and camera to deliver compelling action can't even get that right, it's just not worth playing, and Reckoning is the very definition of wasted money. Stay far, far away.
Dead to Rights: Reckoning mirrors the events and locations of the recently released Dead to Rights 2 with similarly disastrous results. The "story" of a high-ranking government official's daughter getting kidnapped is so half-assed that it feels like something out of an 8-bit game. A handful of imbecilic snippets of text after killing the clichéd end-level boss are literally nothing more than "It was an ambush; They were waiting for me" bits so bad it's hard to know if you should laugh or cry.
DTR2 may have been a lackluster sequel to a game already hurting for more depth, but at least it had a little strategy in place. Cover had to be used, and ample use of both analog sticks had to be employed to keep enemies at bay. Without a second analog stick, the PSP version must rely on two very key elements to keep enemies in view: auto-targeting and a lock-on camera.
Both are botched so badly that it's a wonder how this game even got approved by Sony.
The targeting system manages to actually be worse than GTA's and regularly ignores enemies behind or two feet in front of one-liner-popping hero Jack Slate in favor of an enemy across the room. It's bad enough that you have to cycle through them with either the up button on the d-pad or by rapidly tapping the R shoulder button, but it's as if the game actually tries to pick enemies other than the one you need to hit.
The camera is equally bad, sluggishly sweeping around to capture action a few seconds after you've already dispatched enemies behind you. You can manually center things by tapping both shoulder buttons, but again, it's such a slow spin-around that it's almost better to just slo-mo dive backwards and hope the enemy is somewhat close so you don't waste your slo-mo juice and ammo trying to hit them.
The same basic dive-and-shoot gameplay from the previous DTR games is here, but it's taken to a ridiculous degree. There are no animations for climbing over objects, so you just dive to and fro, sometimes clipping through objects a bit, usually just buffeting against an invisible bounding box while trying to hop over a railing or something. It looks retarded to see Jack dive over a table when he could just step over it or a car hood or a set of steps, but then retarded is pretty much par for the course here.
Like the other games, Jack's not alone, he has his faithful canine pal Shadow with him, and apparently Shadow's ability to teleport in and clip through any and all solid objects to attack enemies that would amusingly present itself in DTR2 is hilariously intact here. Since instantly Bamfing Shadow over to enemies kills all but bosses and gives you back some slo-mo juice, you'll probably use him quite a bit, showing you over and over again how the dog transcends the limits of physical reality until you almost feel sorry for the development team.
When the game isn't forcing you to fight against the lock-on system or camera, it tends to work rather well, but the game can be played through the first time in the span of a little more than an hour. AN HOUR. I understand the PSP isn't a home console, but making a game that short, and as cookie cutter as it is (kill enemies, walk forward into a hotspot to trigger more enemies behind you, fight camera to get it around in time to lock on, kill enemies, enter next room, repeat seven or eight times, fight boss, watch 10 second cut scene, move on to next level) is just plain lazy.
There are more modes, including a survival-style trip through things and harder difficulty levels if you haven't punished yourself enough as it is, but even some wireless multiplayer (using unlockable enemy skins, no less!) can't keep the game from being a very poor amount of content for your $40.
The game does manage to look halfway decent, though, and may even give the PS2 version a run for its money visually, though that's probably a combination of the PSP's screen and the source textures that just work better at PSP resolution, but the framerate manages to stay fairly constant and things are lit and textured nicely for a portable game. It's like a showcase for what a quick and dirty port can look like while simultaneously demonstrating how GBA-level production values just won't fly here.
The audio's about the same, both passing and working on the level of the PS2 version, but showing how poor across the board it really is otherwise. There's no voice acting, and the sound effects are mainly limited to time slowdown when diving, various weapons fire, and that's about it. The music is just as banal and shallow as the PS2 version's pointless little loops, and there's little reason to whip out your headphones and listen to the game.
This is a bad, bad, bad game. It's nice to see that a port can be accomplished so easily, and the sharing of resources means if you've played through DTR2 on home consoles, you'll instantly recognize levels in the PSP version (y'know because they're the exact same much of the time), but it's an abomination of a product that wasn't really all that solid to begin with. When a game that depends on a lock-on system and camera to deliver compelling action can't even get that right, it's just not worth playing, and Reckoning is the very definition of wasted money. Stay far, far away.