Review by: Mitch Dyer

I didn’t – couldn’t – finish Dead to Rights: Retribution. This isn’t because it’s so awful it’s unplayable. For the most part, it’s a perfectly competent game. It isn’t because its gratuitous gore and profanity offended me. That stuff is so ridiculous it’s funny. No, the reason I physically could not finish this otherwise acceptable third-person shooter is its biggest gimmick. Man, I hate that dog.

The first thing you do in Dead to Rights: Retribution is roll off a boat, bloodied and battered by Whoever. The next thing you do is rip thugs’ jugulars and testicles out as a big-ass dog. Grant City Super Cop Jack Slate is in such bad condition that his pooch, Shadow, is his only means of defense. The introduction is intriguing like a Tarantino flick – afterward, the story becomes cliché and lame – with a similarly funny/gross action segment to boot. At first, shaking a gangsters crotch like a chew toy is an interesting change of pace between Jack’s kung-fu kicking, face-shooting action segments. Then, suddenly, after a good few hours of those components growing progressively more stale, I had to deactivate electric generators in one of the worst stealth segments I’ve ever played. And I had to do it as a dog.

The idea of a dog deactivating generators is funny to me, but the process to doing so is the furthest thing from entertaining. Sneaking around a military-esque compound in a balls-out action game wouldn’t fly if you had to play as Slate, but as Shadow it’s even more bothersome. Luring baddies with barking is a decent way to take them out, but beyond that there’s nothing to like about playing as Shadow. Even the “scrotality,” as the game charmingly refers to it, loses its luster after a few times. This isn’t even an anomaly. It’s not the first instance of awful dog stealth, it’s just the worst, and it was the last straw on my figuratively camel-esque back. Man, I hate that dog.

Slate, however, I dig. Not as a character – the hammy voice acting meshes with the rest of the melodramatic story, which takes itself way too seriously to be enjoyable – but as a badass action hero. The whole no-holds-barred cop thing isn’t new, but it’s an entertaining enough excuse to kick and kill things in Dead to Rights. Even Slate’s repertoire of abilities lacks originality, but taking hostages, disarming bad guys, and shooting dudes in slow motion is a great mix of older ideas, even used in the original Dead to Rights games on last-gen consoles. Dead to Rights: Retribution is less of a next-gen action game and more of a last-gen one done spectacularly well. Sadly, it suffers from aged issues, too.

Weird camera angles hamper the melee combat, and because Slate chucks empty guns to the ground, and because ammo is scarce, you’ll spend a lot of time punching people. The combat itself is simple with an acceptable amount of depth, so you’ll dash, evade and break enemy guards while kicking them in the head. Capping combos off with brutal finishing moves – is it really necessary to snap a man’s neck twice? And should he bleed that much when you do it? – is a satisfying addition too, though I got tired of seeing the same “break his leg and kick his face” animation repeatedly. Still, in the grand scheme of Retribution, the melee combat gives what is otherwise a generic, but still entertaining shooter a little variety.