On the surface, this John Woo–inspired shooter owes a lot to Max Payne, right down to the hard-boiled narration and bullet-time feature, but some clever gameplay elements and amusing mini-games give Dead to Rights its own flavor, and one that is pretty tasty at that…for the most part. DTR shines during its shootout sequences as the game throws tons of enemies at you, and gives you a robust arsenal of pistols and rifles to pop ’em with, while a tight targeting system keeps things running fast and smooth. Since DTR adds variety to the gunplay by allowing you to disarm foes, use your environment for cover, and—coolest of all—grab enemies and use them as human shields, it actually manages to outshine Payne on many levels. But DTR falters when it deviates from its barrel-blazing bliss. You’ll often have to play mini-games such as lock-picking, weightlifting, and bomb defusing, and while most of them are fun a few, such as the stripper mini-game, drag on way, way too long, effectively curtailing whatever inertia the game manages to generate. There are also some lengthy hand-to-hand fighting sequences, which are snoozeville due to the weak and limited fighting system. Spazzy camera work has a tendency to obfuscate enemy locations and the visuals are straight up jag-city, but at least the bombastic firearm sound effects compensate for deadpan voice-acting. When Dead to Rights is good, it’s damn good…pity that parts of it are such buzzkills.
