Dead to Rights (Game Boy Advance) review "Jack Slate wasn't kidding when he said Grant City was the hardest place on Earth. Every inch you walk in his world, you'll confront criminals and bad dudes that wanna kill you. This being an action game and all, you'd figure that would be a great thing, right? I mean, who doesn't want to bust into an area, guns blazing, killing anyone who dares stand in your way? Well, unfortunately, the developers screwed up this simple formula for an action title, because you won't be having any fun at all in ..."

Jack Slate wasn't kidding when he said Grant City was the hardest place on Earth. Every inch you walk in his world, you'll confront criminals and bad dudes that wanna kill you. This being an action game and all, you'd figure that would be a great thing, right? I mean, who doesn't want to bust into an area, guns blazing, killing anyone who dares stand in your way? Well, unfortunately, the developers screwed up this simple formula for an action title, because you won't be having any fun at all in Dead to Rights.

I'm not joking, either, when I said every inch you take, you'll fight someone. This really wouldn't have been so bad to begin with, but here's the thing: 95% of the enemies shoot you from off screen. It's horribly annoying, because you're constantly getting shot at, and you won't even know who's shooting you until two seconds later. Hiding is pointless, since they'll defy the laws of logic and shoot through almost anything. So, you'll have to quickly dispose of them the moment you spot these goons, but this too is a pain, because they take around three or four hits to kill, or more depending on your weapon. Do you understand how absurd this is? To take down one person, you're gonna get shot once before seeing them, get shot probably one more time before you start firing away, then get hit two more times until finally blowing that person away. Thank goodness you have two health bars.

You have some abilities that "help" you during combat, but they're next to useless. Take for example the roll move, where everyone except you slows down, supposedly letting you have the opportunity to take down thugs giving you trouble. The problem with this move is that you're still getting shot at, which pretty much defeats the purpose of slowing everything down to assist you. And this ability was basically designed to help you with multiple enemies, so imagine how messed up that scenario is. You can also use your dog, Shadow, to attack someone, but this is also a mess to perform. Find a guy (and get shot in the process), dispatch Shadow by pressing three buttons at the same time, watch as he slowly runs towards his target (getting shot again), then stare as he rips the baddie a new one. It's such a time-consuming ability that you won't even use it after performing it the first time.

It's not all action, though, you'll partake in some... interesting tasks. One thing you'll be doing a lot is lock picking doors under a time limit. However, since all you'll have to do is place four rotating sticks in slots as they circle around casually, the time limit feels tacked on. There's also this one moment where you'll lift weights and have to keep them up for a period of time. You do this by continually tapping a button to keep you in the safety zone. Track & Field-style mashing this is not, sadly. You're tapping it at the same speed you're tapping as you're desperately shooting someone. You know it's a bad thing when a game like The Barbie Diaries has better mini-games than this. Actually, The Barbie Diaries as a whole was much more enjoyable than Dead to Rights.

Yeah, that bad.

Community review by dementedhut (August 06, 2007) Now if only I had the foresight to submit this OutRun review a day earlier...