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Retribution needs a little digging

Jack Slate is a renegade cop playing by his own rules. All around him, a city riddled with corruption is being torn apart by a malicious group of highly trained criminals.

Jack Slate is a renegade cop playing by his own rules. All around him, a city riddled with corruption is being torn apart by a malicious group of highly trained criminals. When Slate’s father is killed, the battle to save the city becomes personal. Cue dramatic 1960s’ movie soundtrack.

On its surface, Dead to Rights: Retribution is as pedantically predictable as it gets. From the formulaic styling of our cop-gone-rogue leading man to the horribly clichéd dialogue in video games to the plotline whose foreshadowing is anything but subtle, Retribution is a buffed up, super-swearing version of Dirty Harry, though the game has some redeeming qualities.

If you can get past all the cheesy bits, forgetting the overall storyline which is really just slapped on for show anyway, the graphics, action and being able to play periodically as a dog will leave you satisfied.

Visually, the game won’t win any awards, but the environments, mood and lighting are all just as gritty as Slate’s dialogue and, with the help of a surprisingly impressive soundtrack, draw you into the action. And though skin textures are quite plastic, you fortunately spend most of your time looking at the back of Slate's head.

The coarse textures of the environments and characters are matched only by the coarse use of dialogue. Voices are fairly realistic, though dramatic pauses, gang vernacular and clichĂ©d character types will have you expecting the chief to scream, “McGarnicle!” Swearing is used way too liberally. It’s as if the writers were trying to win a bet as to how many f-bombs could be spewed per minute. Despite the seedy underground in which the story is set, the swearing is a definite drawback to the enjoyment of the game.

The most enjoyment comes in the actual game play. Its style is a blend of moody elements with arcade-like combat. This is one of the few games where hand-to-hand combat will be preferred over using weapons, mostly to watch the grisly, bone-crunching finishing moves that are unique with each weapon.

Don’t expect hand-to-hand combat to feel as weighted nor as fluid as Batman: Arkham Asylum but the range of moves and the use of blocks and counters are still rewarding. Your movements are surprisingly quick and though somewhat unrealistic for the guy’s size, it did lend a hand to the pacing of the action.

With such a focus on hand-to-hand combat, players will find themselves wishing they could target certain enemies. Cumbersome camera movement combined with fast enemies made targets hard to find when up close, though in the end this was a minor frustration.

In the first few levels, the game’s most unique element comes into play. In certain levels, players will play as Shadow, Jack Slate’s trusted canine companion. Ripping a bad guy to shreds to defend his human companion was sinuously satisfying but didn't seem excessive.

The relationship between cop and canine works well here. Also enjoyable was sending Shadow to retrieve ammo or even combining efforts on enemies.

On its surface, Dead to Rights: Retribution seems like a run-of-the-mill clone of a cheesy cop movie and that stigma casts a dark shadow on the rest of the game play. But when you dig deeper and use combination attacks, cover tactics, and your sidekick, Shadow, the game becomes surprisingly enjoyable.

When he’s not teaching junior high, St. Albert Catholic High alumnus Derek Mitchell spends his free time connected to a gaming console.

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