Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death (2003)

I'm looking forward to this, even though I suspect it's going to suck. I haven't played it, but my memories of it from around release are: terrible Red Bull product placement, one gun with lots of functions, and a (unfulfilled, I think) dev promise that you could go explore inside all of the buildings in the distance.

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Quick impressions: good sense of scale and place, otherwise very clunky and quite ugly.

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Yeah, so this evokes the world pretty well - the moment you walk past a window and see Mega City One sprawling out in front of you, the level design that effectively gives a sense of walking round a big city, the goofy dystopian civilians, billboards and announcements. It gets a bit cartoony for my taste, though - it feels like a Monolith game with all the bright colours and cheesy tutorials, and though I've not read much Dredd I'm used to seeing it in gritty black and white - and the engine is a little ugly.

The idea of arresting perps is intriguing, but the mechanic is irritating. If you disarm or wound a combatant, they'll present themselves for arrest. However, it's tricky to tell if they're at that point yet, so you often end up taking a few more bullets. Also, it's not safe to do your arrests until the area is clear as it locks you in for a few seconds, so it ends up feeling like you're mindlessly picking up collectibles.

Dredd himself is very slow to move, regularly getting stuck on the level geography. Likewise, his weapon only fires in short bursts and takes an age to reload or switch modes. When you're fighting against groups of fast-moving, leaping bullet-sponge vampires, it's not a good match.

Perhaps I'll get more into it as I go along, as I haven't been playing for long, but a quick google revealing a 3/10 review from Eurogamer suggests otherwise...

EDIT: further clunkiness: there's no quicksave key, so it's seven clicks each time I want to save; doors that inexplicably only unlock once all enemies are shot; hilariously borked ragdolling that sends enemies reeling and bouncing off walls for ten seconds after death (EDIT: contemporary reviews reveal this was an issue on release)

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Oof, this is dreadful. All the weapons are crap, all the enemies are irritating, I just had to go around arresting 30 NPCs and now I'm onto a zombies level (set in a shopping mall, no less). Groan.

Also, the Red Bull placement has suddenly appeared and it is insane. Cut-scenes have cans roll towards camera to take up the entire shot, levels are full of Red Bull crates and the logo is graffiti-ed liberally across the city.

I'd like to see a Dredd mod in the Rage engine (idTech5 was it?) - fun shooting, grimier and more impressive visuals, and the arresting mechanic could be RPG-ified. Not sure if that engine could handle big Mega City One spaces, though.

Rating: Red