Every so often you see an action movie with a protagonist whose demeanour is so oozing with cool, whose moves are so slick and whose post bad-guy execution one-liners are so witty that you leave the theatre thinking "damn, I wanna be like that guy". And I'm not talking about pseudo-action-hero triple "x" shouting some inane drivel like "this is gonna be one hell of a trick," before deploying his parachute and windsurfing behind a speed boat. I'm talking about Keanu Reeves in The Matrix doing a cartwheel in slow motion as he dodges incoming fire, picks up the gun of a dead assailant and while upside down caps one of his attackers with a perfectly aimed machine gun burst. It's times like those when you wish that you could pull off the bullet-dodging, slow-mo gunplay that is every action hero's claim to fame. Well now you can...

Dead To Rights puts you in the shoes of just such a leading man, as it hurls you into wicked gunfights, a twisted plot (obligatory betrayal included) and, unfortunately, some very boring punch-kick sequences. Overall though, the game's good points outweigh its bad ones and the frenetic gunplay more than makes up for the lackluster beat-em-up portions of the game. You are Jack Slate, a K-9 cop in the sordid Grant City, framed for murder and embarking on a journey to prove your innocence, leaving in your wake the bloodied corpse of anyone standing in your way. While the plot is interesting and well thought-out, it plays a minor role. As in most action games, it primarily serves to justify the abundant killing.

The gameplay of DTR is hit and miss, but when it's on, it's on. The gameplay can be divided into two distinct parts; the shooting levels and the punch-kick sequences, with the former being exhilarating and the latter tedious. Luckily, the majority of the game revolves around gunplay, making the overall DTR experience a positive one.

Every shooting scene in DTR opens with approximately six to ten enemies on screen, just aching to be waylaid by officer Slate. Since Jack is always outnumbered, he relies on his fast reflexes and repertoire of flashy moves to ensure he doesn't find himself in a body bag (and you at the "game over" screen). Like most action movies, DTR is far enough removed from reality that it's no problem for a lone gunman to take out swarms of hostiles without so much as a flesh wound and it's a good thing too because you constantly find yourself assailed by many a gun-toting baddy.

So just what is in Mr. Slate's bag of violent tricks? For starters, when Jack finds himself unarmed and confronted with trouble he can execute a "disarm" by walking up to an armed enemy and pushing the B button. Arguably the coolest looking moves in the game, disarms take place in slow motion and involve Jack commandeering his assailant's weapon and executing him in any of a number of ways. When you start you can only do a couple of disarms, one or two for an enemy with a rifle and a couple more for one with a pistol. But as you progress, you unlock more and more disarms simply by performing them often. Each one is unique and satisfying, so it's worth playing through the game again just to see new and different disarms, as you won't find them all the first time around. While it's not always a sound tactical measure to approach an enemy unarmed, some of the disarms are so amazing to watch that they are worth sustaining some damage for. It's impossible not to crack a huge smile when Jack grabs his victim's gun, falls backwards while pulling the guy on top of him and then juggles him in the air with rounds from his own weapon. I doubt Jack learned that from the academy.

So now that you're armed, what next? You can easily auto-target your nearest enemy and quickly cycle through the various available targets. This auto-aim feature works wonders here and really helps the action to be fast-paced and fluid, since you don't need to take the time to wrestle with cumbersome aiming controls. Additionally, the weapons available are extremely diverse and run the gamut from small silenced pistols, which you fire two at a time, to huge automatic rifles and rocket launchers. While some guns are certainly more useful then others, the sheer variety and subtle nuances of each really deepen the game.

Jack's most useful ability is that of being able to take hostages. When armed, you can rush up to an enemy and Jack grabs him to use as a human shield. The shield absorbs all damage directed at Jack from the front for as long as the health of the enemy holds out. You move much slower while holding a hostage and can only fire with one hand but, when surrounded, this manoeuvre ensures that Jack is spared some precious health or armour while he caps his attackers. Once the area is clear and the hostage becomes unnecessary, Jack can execute him. Sadly, there are very few animations for hostage executions, which is odd since the developers clearly spent plenty of time developing a myriad of disarms.

And of course, what would an action movie/game be without the ability to dispense justice in slow motion? Jack can perform slow-motion dives akin to the shoot-dodge ability in Max Payne. This allows him to leap through the air while everything but his ability to shoot is reduced to a snail's pace, enabling him to execute several bad guys before he hits the ground. Like Payne, Jack has a meter than limits his ability to perform this move but since you won't use it all that often anyway the constraint is kind of superficial.

The shooting sections of DTR are insanely fun to play for anyone into fast-paced action games like Max Payne. The controls are simple enough and the camera behaves most of the time, so there isn't much to stand in the way of the unadulterated killing spree. Occasionally, you find yourself blindly shooting at enemies around a corner or unable to lock onto any target despite being shot at, but bugs such at this occur so rarely that you come away with a very positive impression of the gunplay.

Unfortunately the beat 'em up levels don't play nearly as well as the shooting ones and quickly become an exercise in tedium. What kills these sections of the game is their simplicity. Jack's only moves are punch, kick, throw, or dodge, a formula that worked well in the days of old with games like Streets of Rage but in this modern era of video games falls flat on its face. With such a limited repertoire of moves, Jack just keeps putting together the same five move combos such as punch punch punch kick kick, or punch punch punch punch punch. Enemies have all the same moves you do and dodge your attacks, often making for long, drawn-out and repetitious brawls. The real frustration kicks in when you are surrounded by six or seven bad guys and any attempt to pummel one ends quickly when you are kicked to the floor by another. Sadly, the longest of these fighting sequences is very early in the game and may frustrate gamers enough that they simply toss the game aside.

There are also several mini-games incorporated into the action that involve unlocking a door, defusing a bomb or making a stripper dance. None of these games is all that exciting and of course the level with the most mini-games happens to be the same as the one with the most punching and kicking, making it all the more annoying. But these sections of the game are generally short, tolerable and usually easy, requiring only one attempt.

The graphics in DTR will definitely come as a disappointment to anyone who plays games solely for the eye-candy. While the backgrounds and character models don't look bad, they also aren't particularly stunning and are certainly a far cry from the likes of Halo or Metroid Prime. Everything in DTR is pretty much utilitarian and it's clear that the next generation power is not being tapped; still, the graphics get the job done.

DTR's background music isn't particularly noteworthy but it certainly adds drama to the already tense gunfights. When you're low on health, clinging to your human shield, turning each corner with dreadful anticipation of what lies ahead, the intensity of the music succeeds in getting your heart rate up. The sound effects of the various weapons are well done and they make firing your weapon very satisfying. The voice acting is straight out of an action B-movie and is extremely well suited to the clichéd but engaging cut scenes.

One aspect of DTR that may turn off gamers is its cranked-up, nonadjustable difficulty. This game is hard and checkpoints can often be spaced substantial distances from one another, meaning that you will spend a lot of time replaying tough sections of the game until you get them right. While this may sound like a deal-killer to some gamers, it's actually the challenge of the game that keeps the action from getting repetitive. There are times when you really need to think about how to get past a section of the game and carefully plan out your moves. I found this type of challenge refreshing and fun; even though the frustration of dying in the same place over and over can be infuriating, it makes the feeling of accomplishment after finally beating a tough area all the more euphoric. The one place where the difficulty backfires is in the fighting sequences, which are just as hard as the shooting parts and require just as many restarts, making these sections of the game more unbearable.

Dead To Rights is an extremely worthwhile purchase for fans of the action genre of video games, though you should definitely rent it first to make sure you can handle the difficulty. Additionally, make sure that you play past chapter three, as that section is the aforementioned longest punch-kick/mini-game sequence and stopping before you have played more of the gunplay sections will leave you with a false sense of what the game is like. It's also worth mentioning that this game is not a rehash of the gameplay developed in Max Payne, though inevitably it draws that criticism with the similarity of the main characters and the existence of the slow-motion effect. Be assured that DTR is its own game and a far cry from being a copycat of last year's killer third-person shooter, though it's likely that if you enjoyed the latter you will have a blast with DTR.

The run-and-gun portions of Dead to Rights come together so perfectly that you become enraptured by your ability to take down hordes of bad guys in classic Jon Woo style. It's these intense, visceral, wicked gunfights that make you forget reality and draw you completely into Slate's fantasy world of fast and furious gun-slinging action. Sadly, the beat 'em up sections of the game mar what otherwise would have been a perfect title, creating a barrier of frustration that must be crossed before the fun really begins. In the end though, those willing to push through the drudgery will find an incredible game with all the trappings of a fantastic action movie. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Greg Gale for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).