Judge Dredd: Dredd VS Death : Web Wombat : Games

2000AD, how I love thou; your comedic, witty, downright surreal and violent comics have inspired, challenged, and amused me for as long as I can remember.

2000AD, with serials like Luke Kirby, The Burning Man, Bradley, The Clown, Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Zenith, Tyranny Rex, Flesh and Finn, you are the closest I will ever get to the Golden Era of comics I was born twenty years too late to enjoy.

Unfortunately, despite all of the above, I'm afraid that I'll be, in no uncertain terms, canning Dredd VS Death today, for being a shamefully mediocre cash-in on the Judge Dredd name, and a blight on the face of the Earth.

This is not the first time that Dredd has come over badly from the comic-book medium.

We've had the very, very so-so Stallone flick, now condemned to the witching hour timeslots of cable networks everywhere, and there was even a Dredd-flavoured pinball game.

The first thing that got my attention about Dredd VS Death (DVSD) was the atrocious rag-dolling. Stiff jointed and weirdly weighted, bodies flip and flop all over the place more than a fish out of water…after they're dead.

Dredd goes to the aid of a homeless
orphan who complained of frostbite...

Speaking of bodies, DVSD is probably the only game I've seen on the commercial market where all the models are low-poly even at high detail. Ooh, it's ugly; it's so very, very ugly.

I would take the cleanly drawn, well coloured frames of the Dredd comic over the amateurish and misshapen characters of Dredd VS Death any day, and twice on Sundays.

Concerning plot…there is none, or at least none that you can be bothered to understand, except that involves weird, loping vampire creatures, the particularly evil Judge Death, and lots of gunplay.

If the script actually contained something worth listening to or even maybe a cool set-piece or two, then maybe I would treat DVSD a little better, but it doesn't, so I won't.

Being an FPS, combat should play a major part in the actual gameplay, and it does, but…it's so…so...flat. It's like everything we've seen before, weapons are clunky, generic and either badly designed or too damn slow to be of any use; sometimes all four.

Enemies share all the above traits, except that they, as opposed to the guns, suffer from the introduction of patented Artificial Idiocy™ technology, which means they step into your line of fire, run about like chooks with their heads cut off, get stuck on corners, and couldn't hit the bottom of a lake if they were standing on it.

Exploding zombies - no
game is complete without them

Technically, they are dangerous, but only if you consider the idea of boredom a threat to your well-being.

Sound is like the rest of the game, specifically, so bog standard the mind boggles.

Hammy dialogue, equally hammy voice actors, and music that is as invigorating as a bullet to the back of the head, with ambient sound effects roughly on the same level.

How to describe DSVD…How about: A game that redefines the term 'generic' to the point that you have to wonder why someone didn't just call it 'PRODUCT #984-B' and get the whole 'title design' thing out of the way.

Even those 2000AD fans who've stuck solid since the beginning will turn their noses up at Dredd VS Death, and so they should, so as to teach the corporates a lesson: that, in a market so fiercely competitive, it takes more than names to sell games.

Make us something worth playing, and watch your sales rocket; fail to heed this advice, and you might as well file for bankruptcy now. To paraphrase the Judge himself, "THIS IS THE LAW".

Game: Judge Dredd: Dredd VS Death
System: PC
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Rebellion
Distributor: Vivendi Universal Games

Rating: 30%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Judge Dredd: Dredd VS Death is on the shelves now.

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