OK so
today's game is an interesting one in that it is a game based on a
film which was based on a comic. I first came in to contact with the
character of Judge Dread when I was young when I was shown a copy of
2000 AD a weekly science-fiction anthology comic. I think it
went a little like this. I was reading a Spiderman comic when a
bigger kid went ''oh kid why you reading about a wimp like that look
at this its got this guy in it called Judge Dread he is proper well
cool.'' OK I don't have such a good memory so I might be making his
words up a bit but they probably involved something proper 80's like
references to one thing being rad and the other gay but you get the
picture. I have to admit I enjoyed the comic and I have picked up the
odd 2000 AD related comic since then but I am far from a hardcore fan
but put simply Dredd is a law enforcement officer in the dystopian
future city of Mega-City One. He is not just any law man though he is
a street judge which basically means that he is a police officer a
judge, jury and an executioner all rolled into one, in this world
there are a bunch of Judges but basically Dredd is the meanest and
toughest of them all.
Well Judge Dredd made his live action film debut
in 1995 in the unsurprisingly titled Judge Dredd. In this film
he was portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. When it was released the film
was totally panned by critics and well by almost everyone. It
did receive praise in some areas these being its its visual
style, its effects, stunts and action sequences. One of the things
the fans seemed to have the biggest problem with is that Dredd
removes his helmet and is in fact helmet-less for the majority of the
film. Apparently though despite all of the hate it grossed more than
$113 million worldwide against its budget of $90 million so it at
least didn't loose anyone money. In total honesty though I have to
admit that I actually kind of like Judge Dredd, its not a world
changing film but its a decent action film with a few laughs and its
a good enough way to pass a few hours.
So what we have here then is a game which started
out as a much loved cult comic became a not very well liked movie and
then became a game which actually received reviews ranging from good
to average back in the day. I need to admit something right now
though, I might have seen the film back then but I never bothered
with the game for the simple reason I just kind of decided it would
probably suck and so just gave it a wide berth.
OK so lets start with the games story, well for a
start if you saw the movie, well the story is pretty much the same,
it follows the film very closely up until right near the end. You
actually get a text crawl in the intro giving you the whole set up
for the world telling you about Mega City One and the Judges and what
life is like in this world. You have two levels where you basically
get to be Dredd doing his regular job being an officer of the law. It
is then here that you learn that Dredd has been found guilty of
murder and is exiled from MegaCity One into what is called The Cursed
Earth. After this its basically making your way through the cursed
earth and then back to MegaCity one to prove your innocence, to get
the guy who framed you and to basically kick his ass. Something
critics of the movie will like is that the Dredd in this game never
actually removes his helmet, your in the Dredd uniform for the entire
game, what do I think about this? I actually think its kind of
stupid, he gets exiled in full body armor essentially in his police
uniform yeah like that would happen but yeah this probably makes some
critics of the film a bit happier.
OK so now its time to talk about the gameplay.
Controlling Dredd is pretty easy. You run around with a button for
jumping, a button to kick, one for shooting, then you have a button
to switch weapons and the last one I will mention is the arrest
button. Something which doesn't seem to matter beyond points but is
kind of cool given the character is not only can Dredd just waste
enemies he can also sometimes arrest them. You will see enemies throw
up their hands and surrender and if you approach them and press the
arrest button then Dredd will cuff them and they will be floated away
presumably to jail on a little platform.
One of the good things about the game is that
enemies come along in all shapes and sizes, you have a variety of
different looking criminals and then latter you get ABC Warbots and
skinless clones, something called Judge hunters. There are a couple
of boss battles, you even get to ride one of the judges bikes for a
nice change of pace but things like this could have been done more
often as this doesnt compare that well in the variety and keeping it
fresh stakes as something like Indiana Jones's Greatest Adventures
which I reviewed recently, in fact despite this games attempts at
variety this game feels like it starts to drag on a bit and if you
are anything like me then you will most likely begin to feel your
interest just dripping away. Some of the level objectives also seem
like more of a slog than anything, find this, blow so many crates up
etc. You tend to find you can get a bit lost in levels and start
feeling your doing a chore not playing a game, in this way the game
reminds me of Spiderman and the Xmen Arcades Revenge with the bomb
deactivating etcetera. The great thing about the character of Dredd
is that he is an arse kicking bad ass and I just feel this game
needed to be a little more straight up action, a little more Contra
style. I will admit though that things get a little more fun when
replaying levels as you know the layout and where to go to meet your
objectives instead of feeling like your wandering lost.
OK so I just want to quickly go over the games
graphics and sound. The graphics in this game look quiet good really.
Nice character animation, the graphics are a little bit comic book
visuals meet Flashback and in my opinion it really works. The
scenery and characters are very colorful and I would say represent
the source material well. Overall its not a bad game graphics wise at
all. The music in this game is kind of generic action music but in
honesty it has a sort of dark gritty theme to it all and it helps set
the mood well, it certainly fits the charters and world and doesn't
grate. The sound effects are all pretty much what you would expect,
although seriously they needed to throw in a few voice samples in my
opinion, having him occasionally say ''I am the Law'' perhaps when
beating a boss or something would have been a nice little touch.
OK so now is the all important score part of the
review, what am I going to give Dredd? Well after much deliberation I
have decided that what Dredd deserves is a 6.5 out of 10. Its a
reasonably enjoyable game, much better than average but there are
also a heck of a lot better games on the system. I spent £8 on my
cartridge only Pal copy and for me I think that price is about right,
that's this games sweet spot in my opinion. If you can get it for
something around that point then id heartily say give it a bash.
Looking online at the moment cartridge only pal copies tend to be
about £12 to £15 with fully boxed copies going for £25 to £30.
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