Dead to Rights [GC]

Some of you may remember the great Street Fighter II craze of the early 1990s. The biggest, most popular game in the arcades for an unfathomable amount of years, SF2 was a sought-after property for both Sega and Nintendo as they battled for the hottest franchise around. Eventually snagged by Mario and company, Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II: Turbo Hyper Fighting went on to become some of the successful and popular Super Nintendo assets there were. For the longest time, gamers who craved their own brand of Ryu justice had one system and one system only to turn to. That is, until the Genesis finally got its own platform-exclusive edition touting specific gameplay additions, graphical tweaks, and option changes that the SNES cartridge didn't have. For the first time in the game's illustrious history, player's had a choice as to where they could fight -- and they were happy about it. Funny how history repeats itself?

And repeat itself it has. Though the major console players are different and the developers just as diverse, Namco's Xbox action piece Dead to Rights finds itself in a similar position to Capcom's Street Fighter II from all those years ago. No longer exclusive to the system that bore it and a free agent in the land of available platforms, the wildly popular and violently epic tale of a K9 officer's quest to clear his name has finally arrived on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. And while the game is still not as polished as it should have been (especially in terms of the hand-to-hand combat and animation), the system-specific enhancements and play-oriented changes that Namco have put into this newer version definitively warrant a second look; or first look, for those of us who haven't played it before.

The Facts

• Third-person action shooter with plenty of brutality
• Improved character speed and targeting
• More balanced difficulty, gameplay progression than Xbox version
• Tons of weapons to steal and use
• Over 20 specially animated disarms to take out enemies in extravagant ways
• Improved visual effects such as particles

Features Surprisingly there've been a large number of alterations and changes made to accommodate new players, and depending on your point of view it can be either a good thing or a bad thing. The most immediate difference is the alteration of the game's difficulty. Previously set to a single challenge type that pushed gamers to their maximum limits, the PS2 and GameCube version of Dead to Rights has been made a lot easier. Rather than slug your way through multiple cellblocks and several mini-games to make it through the prison level for instance, gamers can now simply battle through the initial block with no need to participate in the sub-games for advancement. And though you can select from four separate challenge levels, none of them, not even "Super Cop" mode, match the same level of difficulty that the original Xbox adventure provided.