Grant City is a boom town gone bust, and Jack Slate is the vice cop assigned to clean it up. Dead to Rights: Retribution, a 2010 third-person shooter from Volatile Games and Namco Bandai, drops him into a city falling to crime, greed and corruption. It is a reboot of the Dead to Rights franchise, and it wants to be the definitive origin story for both Jack and his dog, Shadow.
Trailer, via IGN.
A Tugboat, a Triad, and a Dog
The game opens with Jack collapsing on a dock after stepping off a tugboat. Members of the Grant City Triad move in to kill him as revenge for earlier events. Shadow kills them, brutally, and Jack makes his way to a bar to meet Faith Sands, an EMT and a friend. There he tells her what happened, and the game flashes back.
Temple Tower and Captain Inness
The flashback starts with a terrorist takeover of Temple Tower. Jack disobeys orders from Captain Inness and charges in, killing Union gang members, saving hostages and chasing the gang’s leader, Riggs, to the roof. Riggs escapes by helicopter. Jack suspects military training, based on how well the Union were armed and organized. Inness wants him fired. SWAT Captain Redwater, a friend of Jack and his father, Frank Slate, intervenes.
Frank Slate Dies Near the Triad
Redwater takes Jack and Shadow to a lead on Riggs. They find plans and simulated versions of the Temple Tower studio, then a gunfight breaks out when Redwater arrives with SWAT. Frank and Jack pursue Riggs and a Triad member, splitting up. Jack catches the Triad member. He finds Frank mortally wounded nearby. Faith tries to save him and fails. Jack beats the Triad member and storms off.
The GAC Runs Against the Law
Jack stops a Triad bombing at Grant City Central and beats their leader, Tseng, hand to hand. He returns to where his father died. Riggs, he learns, belongs to the newly formed GAC, the Grant City Anti Crime Unit, created by Julian Temple and approved by the city to fight crime in ways that go against standard procedure.
Use your sidearm to pick off enemies from a distance, take cover and blind-fire with the game’s new ranged combat mechanics.
Hybrid Combat, Branched Combos
The pitch is a hybrid combat system. Jack can shoot from range, take cover, blind-fire, grab human shields, steal weapons with disarm moves and use takedown moves. Close quarters gives him branching melee combos, counterattacks and disarms. Grant City’s slums and alleys hold gangs with their own abilities and fighting styles.
KEY FACTS BOX
- Release year: 2010
- Developer: Volatile Games
- Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
- Genre: Third-person shooter
- Modes: Single player
- Critical score: 6.9/10 (IGDB critic aggregate, 6 outlets)
What Retribution Gets Right
The bones are good. A reboot that explains how Jack and Shadow became partners is a sound idea, and the hybrid combat gives the shooter a close-quarters answer most games of its kind lack. Shadow is not a prop. The dog does real work in the opening.
The problem is everything around the bones. Retribution piles on gangs, a Triad, a Union, a private anti-crime unit and a dead father, and none of it lands with weight. Riggs escapes twice. The GAC reveal is the one idea that could carry a story about a city that outsources justice, and the game treats it as a plot twist rather than a question. Jack beats a man after his father dies and the game moves on. That is a character defined by rage, and the game never asks what the rage costs.
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