Irrelavent Game Review: Nation Red

Zombies are dull. They are. I realised a while back that zombies as a concept hold no interest for me. By extension, since I'm an angry man that fears what he doesn't understand, the obsession that nerd/geek/whatever culture has with zombies really irritates me. I'm sick of hearing about zombie apocalypse scenarios, the associated survival plans and all of that general bullshit. The end of civilization and a never ending hoard of mindless, shambling husks of flesh? The way some people bang on about zombies, I feel like we're already there.

Its on that sunny note that we come to Nation Red. A zombie themed top-down arena shooter. A zombie themed top-down shooter that happens to really rather good. The core premise is simple: survive as long as possible, to kill as many zombies as possible, to get the highest score possible. There are other modes that put a spin on this basic concept, but nothing that messes with the formula. It may sound basic and that's because it is. It's also amazing fun. In an age of games aping film, it's great to be able to jump into a game, play for a few minutes and feel some gratification. All without sitting through any cutscenes, ham-fisted symbolism or horrific, pretentious, stilted dialogue.

That's a good thing too, because Nation Red is not a game that you want to play for long periods of time. I found myself playing it like an Android game, jumping in for some quick fun in between doing other things. This isn't because it's in any way bad, far from it. It's just that the action is so frantic and so immediate, that it can actually get a little mentally tiring. There's as much action in 10 minutes of Nation Red as there is in hours of more... deliberately, paced games.

This is what it looks like. All the time.

As a game with so much emphasis on its action i.e. it's the entire game, NR lives or dies on how that action feels to the player. The glut of games on Steam alone with this basic premise shows just how easy they can be to pump out, so NR really needs to ply its craft well to stand out in the sea of similar titles. Thankfully, it does. Basic control consists of shooting, obviously, running and a diving roll to get out of trouble when things get too hairy. Simple controls, but well applied, and that's the key. No death ever feels as though it's the fault of the controls. They're precise and consistent, so any ill advised attempts to chest bump with a zombie will always be player error and not control quirk.

Running and rolling are all well and good, but the real draw to a game like this is the weapons. Just how many ways are there for one to convert Zombies into stains!? Thankfully, there are loads. The player always starts with a  Glock 19 and a Machete. There are only ever these two weapon slots, though they can be locked so that the equipped weapon isn't replaced. Re-equipping is just a matter of walking over a new weapon, which are in turn randomly dropped by dead zombies. The range of weapons is good and broad, ranging from basic pistols shotguns and submachine guns to a machine grenade launcher and a minigun. The weapon selection is largely played straight, the only real 'gag' weapons being the nail gun and steam hammer, and these aren't so much zany as unconventional. Don't expect any Dead Rising style weirdness here. 

Nation Red does also have a range of melee weapons, the usual stuff: machete, crowbar, fire axe, but these never seem to be the right tool for the job. They're insanely powerful, and can make short work of "boss" zombies if you're crafty, but they're also slow and wide the swings just open things up for one of the innumerable other zombies not being hit to come in and attack. So unlike Modern Warfare, it's usually a better idea to use your gun rather than a knife... who'd a thunk it!?

Into this mix of zombies and lead comes a surprisingly nuanced mechanic in the form of perks. Perks are granted every level (its the usual system: killing grants XP which grants a level up when enough is accrued) and they work in a few core ways, they either modify the effect of power ups dropped by Zombies, increase the frequency of certain powerups appearing, or give the player an auto attack that supplements, but doesn't greatly increase, the carnage they can create. However, you can pick one of a randomly generated list of seven at each level. Added to this, comes the fact that certain "trees" exist wherein multiple perks act on the same powerup. For instance, the Fire Team perk improves the Ghost powerup by equipping your 'Ghost' with a shotgun. Once you have that perk, it can be further upgraded by the Strike Team perk. This raises an interesting question in play: with powerups being random, is it worth using up multiple perk choices to upgrade a powerup you may not even get in this match? Or would it be better spec in a more all-round fashion? Though there is the option to switch to 'Random Perk Mode' or 'Auto Perk Mode' if selecting perks is too 'not killing zombies' for some tastes.

See, exactly the same. Great ain't it!

The perks add an extra element of depth to the gameplay without overly complicating the simple formula and all the random chance helps to keep each round from getting monotonous. 

A special mention has to be made for the music. None of the early Resident Evil style atmospheric crap here. Its all heavy, sludgy, guitars and exaggerated metal. Perfect for getting into the mood for killing a few hundered shambling corpses. 

Where Nation Red really shines is in its attention to detail. All the little things are executed so well that when they slot together, they make a game that just works. Since no individual part lets the side down, it's strong across the board. The huge number of similar games may show how easy it can be to make a game like this. But Nation Red shows how it should be done. It may not be the deepest game in the world, but it is incredibly fun, perfect for a 10 minute blast to blow the cobwebs out. Since you can never play long enough to burn out, you'll keep coming back for those quick blasts of carnage again and again.  For its amazing execution and the sheer amount of fun it offers, I hugely recommend it to anyone that even vaguely enjoys action games. Even if they don't like zombies!

9/10

Not a Happy Camper.

Thirteen days ago, I ordered a part for my bike. Nothing vital or impressive, just an aftermarket nosecone fairing to help strengthen the look of the front end, which, even with the screen is a little weedy compared to the quite dense, heavy-set style of the bike. But I digress. 

Thirteen days ago, I ordered the part. Five days ago I contacted the seller, not because the item was late, but just to make sure I would be around when it arrived. It's at this point that the company elected to inform me that the part would have to be manufactured first, and delivery would be 30 days. This just boiled my piss. At no point during the order process was I made aware that this would be the case. That is atrocious customer service. Thirty days is a damn long time, more than that, it's longer than the 7-10 day blanket delivery time quoted on their website. 

For me, the worst part is that they didn't, at any time, decide to tell me what was going on. I only found out because I asked them. Why would anyone think that was a good idea?! It's just basic courtesy to keep your customer in the loop. All it would take is a notice on the appropriate page saying "This item may be subject to a manufacturing delay, please contact us for further details" or just give a generous timescale. There. Bam. I fixed the problem. So why the hell am I the one that's unemployed, whilst Welsh Eeyore (I had the displeasure of talking to one of their staff on the phone over another problem) and his cohorts continue to derp their way through with laughable customer service. I really hope that was the product of an equal opportunities hiring policy. No wonder this ...particular retailer had their old warehouse burned down!

The real point of this rant though, is that as annoyed as I am, I can't cancel the order. Buying straight from the manufacturer is subject to the same delay (though at least they have the good grace to tell you!) and is more expensive. So I am cursed instead to be screaming my rage away into the digital abyss. Waiting for a nosecone that may come at some point between now and mid-November. Having to wait with baited breath every day, because those useless bastards don't do dispatch emails.I suppose it could be worse. I could be a starving African. Well that's what all of the insignificant, gibbering imps chanting "First World Problems" at everything would tell me me. Bunch of hypocritical little nobends that they are. 

And breathe. 

Basilisk

I'm still recovering from the RC30, so it's going to be a while before the NR gets done. Well that, and the fact that I'm still short of a few paints. Still, when I get the itch to paint, it just has to be scratched. So today's victim project is an Imperial Guard Basilisk that my brother has had sitting in primer for almost a year. Don't ask about the missile, I think he was channeling the GI Joe school of vehicle design.

Apart from the block of black primer showing from where I was holding it, it looks pretty cool like this.

Imperial Guard vehicles are some of my favourite things to paint. They're like comic book tanks: both gritty and caricatured at the same time. They're also quicker to build than 'real' scale models and I don't feel any compulsion to paint them in 'correct' colours, which I would if I was building a Tiger or an Abrams. 

My first basecoat was a Vallejo colour, Camouflage Green I believe. It went on nicely, the airbrush giving even coats. Sadly this wasn't to last: when I was spraying the black wash to provide some initial shading, I noticed that the green was separating in places. The pigment was separating from its binder. I gave the paint a good mix, waited for the model to dry and had another try. This time I found myself tearing the airbrush down because the paint had separated inside, leaving huge globs of acrylic pigment inside. Not good.

Since the Vallejo was a no go, and I don't have the GW equivalent as I had intended to gradually replace my GW stock with Vallejo (a plan which may need rethinking), I moved to only colour that seemed appropriate: Catachan green.

First coat of Catachan green goes down, in retrospect I should've re-primed first.

The Catachan green is a much darker colour than I had intended to use and when I sprayed my first black wash coat (to bring out the details) I almost shat myself, the model turned almost entirely black! It turned out lighter as the wash dried, but it still showed me that some serious highlighting work was going to be needed. 

 Once I had the hull detail darkened, but still lighter than I wanted it, I painted the barrel black using Adeptus Battlegrey GW Foundation paint. I then applied the final washes to the model until the hull detail was as dark as I wanted. This meant that the barrel detail was picked out, but the grey was not overly darkened by the washes. I really like applying washes with the airbrush and didn't want to have to do the barrel separately with a normal brush, so doing things this way worked out well.

Very. Very. Dark.

 With the broad strokes done, I moved onto picking out the details, mostly applying metallics to the molded details. I've seen the skulls and such done up in bone before, but that doesn't make much sense to me, so I stuck with highly visible metallic silver XD. The area around the hull gun is molded oddly, so I painted it up as if it was brown leather: turn of the century style. I think its fairly fitting really.

More generally, I drybrushed lighter greens over the raised detail in order to highlight it them, the same with the edges of top surfaces: the ones likely to be hit by sunlight.The same was done in lighter gray on the main and hull guns. Metallics were carefully drybrushed over some surfaces to simulate where paint would be scratched off, such as on corners or raised areas like rivets. Some was also carefully applied around the 'ribs' of the main gun barrel.

The tracks may be virtually covered, but in my opinion, they're a detail that takes little time to paint and really adds to the look overall. My base for tank tracks is Charandon Granite GW Foundation. To this I add the drybrushing of various browns that I use on other low areas of the model, such as the dozer blade, to give the impression of being dirty. Finally, I to a very, very, faint drybrush of silver onto the edges of the track links.

Weathering a model is one of my favourite parts of the painting process, so I spend a long time with my drybrush and detail brushes applying small amounts 'dirt' and metallic silver to areas (for scraped off paint) until I'm happy with the overall look. It all depends on my mood, sometimes my vehicles look like they've just been down a farm track, other times they look like they've gone through a swamp, I just keep weathering until it feels right.

The final paintwork to be done was the missile, mostly because I forgot about it. Maybe my mind was trying to protect me from the horror. Whatever the reason,it still needed done. Given that the model was so dark and gritty, I decided to go with a semi-realistic aircraft missile paint scheme rather than a more comic-book one. To this end I painted the missile fuselage a light gray, darkening it slightly with a black wash, which also served to pick out the molded detail. For the warhead I went with a Enchanted Blue, a bright GW Blue. I was in too minds about this as I thought it may draw attention to the missile, but in the end it just felt right. So I went with it.

My major complaint with how the model turned out came right at the end. I decided to apply some decals, for once, in spite of the experience I had with the RC30 because I felt they'd add some much needed detail. Sadly, they're too bright, and my attempts to weather them ended up looking, well, crap. Even worse, they're shiny, and the excess material I had to leave around the edge (they shapes were too complex and small to just cut around the detail) just draws attention to the fact that these are in fact decals, not painted detail.

Apart from that though, I'm pretty happy with this quick n' dirty paint job, even if at around 6 hours invested, it wasn't necessarily that quick.

As an added bonus I did produce an art

It represents my cynicism regarding the art 'business'.

Postapocalyptabox

Painting models is great fun and all, but it's a little... small scale. For a while now I've been looking for something to do with the case well, old toolbox, that I keep my brushes, airbrushes, modelling tools and non-GW paints in. I had originally envisaged something steampunk-y, but steampunk has become a little overdone  recently, and there's no way I'd have the time or skill to do anything that I would be proud of when I was done. Instead, I decided that post-apocalyptic was the way to go. Partially because I want to be Judge Dredd kicking the shit out of muties in the Cursed Earth and also because weathering is one of my favourite parts of the painting process. 

So this is how the box started out. Pretty standard red metal toolbox really. The silver paint came about when I had a quarter of a 'cup' of silver paint left over when I'd finished painting. I couldn't put it back in the pot as it'd been thinned, so I got creative!

A key part of my "design" was to be an old front sprocket I had lying around from my first Bike, it'd been kicking around for almost two years, but I couldn't throw it out, it's too cool! Hell, it even (by total coincidence) has the perfect number of teeth/stamped on it!

My First job was to sand down the current paint, both to give it a worn, weather beaten, look and also to provide a 'keyed' surface for further layers of paint to stick to. I gave different areas different amounts of attention in order to give different areas of the box a different amount of weathering. Generally speaking, uniformity doesn't lead to believable weathering. I used 1200 grit wet and dry paper to flatten the paint but not strip it or leave huge gouges in it. This done, I eyeballed the best place for the sprocket and stuck it in place ready to drill the mounting holes in the box.

I started drilling with a very fine bit in my Dremel/Rotary tool, first making a pilot hole then progressively boring it out wider with larger bits. This worked well initally, but by the time I was on the 3rd bit, the job had become a little too big for my poor Dremel and its attachments. Instead of boring out the hole, I was melting my drill bit! I decided that a puddle of molten metal wouldn't really fit in with my overall design and switched out to my proper cordless drill and some HSS (high speed steel) bits. By their powers combined, they made short work of the box.

With the holes drilled, I removed the taped on sprocket, and got busy with the meat of the work: the painting. Using the airbrush, I first applied coats of red in various areas around the box. Doing this helped to further emphasise the weather damaged look, but adding to the number of shades of red on the box, as if some areas had been more sun bleached than others. This is very important as post-apocalyptic worlds must always be deserts. Always.

When the red dried, I began shooting areas of orange, brown and silver. The aim of this was to simulate dirt, old rust, and areas where paint had been removed so the metal underneath had begun to show. This whole process was very, for want of a better term, organic, I had no exact look in mind so I just added paint wherever happened to feel right.

After this, I mixed up various shades of brown, orange and yellow to create a rust shade and proceded to stipple it onto the box with a sponge. The stippling was important to help limit uniformity and to give a texture that added to the look.

Finally, I pop riveted the sprocket to the top of the box. Right now it is still a little shiny, but I'm leaving it to form its own natural patina as I feel that will look more authentic on bare metal than anything I could do.

Psychonauts: Fun, but Disappointing

Psychonauts is one of those games that always comes up in discussions about underplayed games. So it goes without saying that when it came up cheap on Steam, I had to give it a bash. Since I've (finally) just finished it, I thought I'd try to articulate some of my thoughts. Not a review per se, just a bit of a commentary on a few things I found interesting about the game.

I want the cap and goggles. Just sayin'

Everything anyone has ever said about the visual design of the game is dead on. There's nothing else quite like it. The weirdness of the character designs is one thing, but the aesthetics of each mind are something else. The story device of entering different characters minds is used to maximum effect in gameplay, with no two minds being close to the same. It's not just visual design either, different minds bring appropriate level design. A particular instance comes to mind when entering the mind of Fred Bonaparte (yes, really) who is sharing cranium  space with a genetic memory of Napoleon. The level itself takes on the appearance of a hex based game board, complete with pieces to move. It's barely more than superficial, the level really relies on the same mix of platforming and psychic powers that characterises the rest of the game, but it's nevertheless a welcome break from platform puzzles and is long enough to satisfy but not so long as to get tedious. This level may not be the most bombastic (stomping around a lungfish's mental city like a monster from a Kaiju movie gets that award), or the best visually (that goes to Black Velvetopia, see the pic) but it does sum up the greatest strength of Psychonauts as a game. The use of the same mechanics in ways that manage to feel vastly different thanks to level aesthetics and mechanical design.

Beautiful. I want everything to look like this.

I hope that it came across that I do like the game overall, because it's far from perfect. The use of the same mechanics in varying ways is fun, but it can feel at times that these core principles could be tightened up. It's the little things, not grabbing ledges consistently, a lack of clarity of what you can and can't jump on. This is then combined with a camera that isn't really up to the task. It fits in with the dreamlike, etherial feel that the game can have at times, as though its floating along behind you on a little cloud. This just doesn't cut it for precise platforming though, especially as the twisted, disjointed aesthetic of many of the levels often means that you're changing direction a lot during the heavy platforming sections. Speaking of irritating platforming, I found many of the platform set-pieces to be a bit like most of the jokes on Family Guy. Entertaining at first, but they drag on long past their welcome. It's not even a matter that they get too challenging, its just that as more and more elements both visually, and mechanically, come into play as these sections progress, the more that the dodgy camera or issues with the platforming as a whole come to the fore. Also, as much as the idea of using the same mechanics in different ways is a good idea, it can mean things get boring as an area drags on, making you do the same things over and over, only with the camera being less co-operative each time. 

Run Puny Lungfish!

I liked Psychonauts, I can even see some of the things that make it such a cult classic. Yet, I just don't feel it. The nice gameplay ideas and spectacular aesthetic design are marred by technical failings, and as much as I did enjoy it, I wouldn't call it more the an a 7/10 at most. For me it represents an assortment of brilliant ideas that sadly are held together by mediocre execution of the basics. I really wanted to see what all the people that still gush with praise found in Psychonauts, and as much fun as it was, I'm kinda sad that I didn't.

Tamiya VFR750R RC30 Model Kit Review

At over £15,000 for the real thing, the Tamiya 1:12 scale VFR750R RC30 model kit may be the closest most people can get to owning Honda’s legendary homologation special. The question is how much of the bike’s amazing pedigree has been translated into the kit?

First impressions upon opening the box are good. Each sprue is contained its own protective bag, with the clear plastic sprue even coming in a box. A wise decision, given the relative weakness of clear plastic. The rest of the plastic sprues are appropriately coloured: body panels in white, ‘unpainted metal’ parts in grey, etc. They need to be painted anyway, but it’s still attention to detail that really points to quality. Another detail that jumps out is the colour printing on the inside of the box. Admittedly it’s only box art for other model kits, but it is confidence inspiring nevertheless to see that some care has even been taken with the design of the inside of the box.

Inside the box!

Inner box design is not the only quality touch on the kit either. The kit comes with machine screws and bolts for affixing certain parts: the wheels; the fairing; the engine; etc. The screws are not be a big deal in themselves,  but the fact that the included screwdriver is magnetic along its entire length is. When the biggest bolt in the model is an M2 (2mm diameter shaft) and some are only 4mm long, it’s a godsend to have a fully magnetic screwdriver to rely upon. In the grand scheme of things, a tiny magnetic screwdriver may not seem like much, but it does show that kit has been designed by people with an understanding of the realities of assembling it. 

This fact really comes across through the instructions. Scale model instructions can, at their worst, be downright confusing. Everyone has come across the problem of following the instructions to the letter only to find that in, say, Stage 12, you’re now expected to paint a part that became inaccessible in stage 10. Not so with the instructions in this kit. The pictures are large and detailed, and the paint/decal applications needed are listed when a component first becomes appears, ensuring that the aforementioned nightmare scenario can’t happen. On top of this, it’s always made clear where parts attach. Even the potential minefield of the rubber hoses used to simulate the various cables, hoses, and wiring on the bike is made simple. The various attachment points are made clear, and there are helpful measuring marks for cutting lengths on the appropriate steps of the instructions themselves. Each cut hose is also given a letter designation so when it reappears in later steps you know exactly which hose is being referred to. The kit also comes with a good amount of spare hose, ensuring that slightly generous cuts won’t mean running out later.

Note the measurements for the hoses.

The attention to detail even extends to explaining exactly how components fit together, not simply relying on a single vague arrow from component to component. In the case of the exhaust downpipes for the rear cylinders, which need to be manoeuvred and twisted into position, the instructions give a step-by-step walkthrough on how to get the pipes to fit properly. Assistance that is much appreciated on such a fiddly task, and a simple touch that further shows that the people writing the instructions have actually assembled the kit themselves... or are psychic. 

The plastic of the kit itself, the clear notwithstanding, feels to be high quality; it’s easy enough to strip the excess material left after cutting parts from the sprue and to slice the mould lines off. The plastic also feels reasonably resilient and not at all brittle. It’s in a good middle ground between being soft and being strong. The moulding of the plastic parts is also top-notch. There was no excess mould flash on the pieces, and even the unavoidable mould lines were very minor, to the point that on some pieces it could be hard to tell if it was a mould line or a sculpted seam. Speaking of detail, this kit has it in spades, right down to the idiot lights on the clocks and the valves on the wheels. The best part is that all of the details are also crisply defined, really helping to ease the painting process. 

No, they aren't totally straight.

It is worth mentioning though that there was one defect on this particular kit. A screw hole for holding the engine had not been drilled all the way through. Without buying another it’s impossible to know if this is a problem with all RC30 kits or just with this one, still it was easily fixed with a Dremel (a pin vice would work too). For a kit this detailed though, a single minor issue in the sculpting isn’t really all that much of a concern, and in no way undermines the integrity of the kit as a whole. 

The only potential problem to be aware of with the kit is that if you decide to go with the HRC paintjob, the red portions are provided by large printed decals with both the red ‘paint’ and the markings on them. This does mean that nobody has to perfectly paint three matching coloured lines on the tail panels, but it does mean that perfect decal placement is a must. Especially as such large decals can be difficult to place properly on panels with compound curves. The curvature also seems to become more of a problem as the decal dries, so even one that was perfectly laid can end up looking less than stellar when fully dry. How big a problem this is all comes down to personal preference. Whether you want HRC colours or not, how skilled you are at decal application, or if you would just want to paint the scheme rather than using decals at all, are all considerations to make. This approach of using decals rather than painted surfaces is an interesting idea and whilst it can be tricky, it’s far from a deal breaker, especially on such an otherwise high quality kit.

The Tamiya VFR750R RC30 kit is a kit of unmistakably good quality, from the cleanly sculpted, detailed components, to the clearly written/drawn instructions. Even the niggles with the kit are so completely down to personal preference that it almost feels like nit-picking. It’s so very good that all that remains to be said is that for anyone looking to build a motorcycle kit in 1:12 scale, this one comes highly recommended.

Completed with clear fairing.

RC30 Complete

This is my completed Tamiya VFR750R RC30 model kit. I’m not totally happy with it, but perfectionist as I am; I have to admit that it isn’t too bad for my first motorcycle scale model kit. I intend to review the kit as a kit, but first I’d like to mention some of my thoughts in relation to my specific building experience. 

I was really impressed with the quality of the model and the advantages this had in how easy it went together. I only had moulding defect on the entire model and that was just an engine mounting hole in the frame that hadn’t been drilled fully through. All it took to rectify was two seconds with a tiny drill on the dremel. Compared to my experiences with both military scale models and wargaming miniatures, this was a real breath of fresh air. Beyond that though, all the parts meshed together perfectly without trimming (beyond removing moulding lines), reshaping, or using putty to fill gaps.

Another nice touch comes from the clear fairing panels; these mean that you can see your beautifully painted components without them being covered by a fairing. This really appeals to me as someone who spends as much time painting the engine as the fairing or tank. 

Less impressive was the heavy use of decals. The RC30, as a world superbikes homologation bike, only came in the red, white and blue HRC colours. As a perfectionist/bike nerd, I had to have my model in said correct colours. Tamiya seem to have understood that people would want to do this, but that it’s a bit of a stretch to do a three-tone paintjob on a 1/12^th scale body panel (with gold pinstripes between the colours). So instead, there are large red decals so you only need to paint white and blue onto the panels. I had real problems with this; the decals wouldn’t stay on the contours of the panels once they’d dried out, even when I had them flat with no bubbles or wrinkles. Still, apart from that, I really like the abundance of logos as points of detail, even down to the dial faces of the clocks and the tyre pressure info sticker on the chain guard.

Overall, it’s been a fun experience and really highlighted for me the different skills needed for military, fantasy or wargaming modelling as opposed to scale modelling showroom appearance vehicles. It’s been (at the risk of sounding corny) really educational, as I’ve learned things as I’ve gone along that I’ll be able to take into my next project, namely that it’s worth just priming entire sprues to begin with (not me being dense, I was worried about the areas that wouldn’t be primed when I cut the pieces from the sprue) and that the airbrush is worth its weight in gold for the smooth, even finish it can give. Still, as fun as it was, I think I need to do a few warhammer models to cleanse the palette, since I can run wild, before I can dive back into doing another bike.  

Old Game Review: Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death (PC)

To be the best of the best; pounding the streets of the Big-Meg, Lawgiver in hand; meting out justice to perps. Can there be a more appealing fantasy? For fans of 2000AD’s most famous lawman, not likely. Sadly, there haven’t been many games that allow you to jump into the boots of Dredd, and of those precious few have been much more than playable, let alone good. It’s with this in mind that it can be safely said that Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death is easily the best of the bunch. By no means is it a good game in the sense that it’s better than mediocre. But it plays acceptably enough, has few game-breaking bugs, and most importantly it really feels like a Judge Dredd game, not just a generic FPS with a Judge Dredd texture pack. This is really the crux of the appeal of Dredd vs Death. Taken on its merits as a shooter, it’s mediocre at best, but it manages to become something more by virtue of its subject matter, a rare feat for a licensed game. 

Damn protesters. The price of justice is freedom

As a first person shooter, the game is competent. The movement is fairly fluid, there is a reasonable selection of guns and level design is functional if not inspired. This is all well and good. The game just feels to be lacking something, an x-factor if you will, to really make it a memorable experience. Take the weapons for instance. For one thing you’re limited to carrying two, which can really impair your ability to adjust to threats and can lead to instances of running out of ammunition as you only have two stacks of ammo to work with. Still, that design choice is at least understandable both in that the game comes from the post-Halo world of 2003 and because in the campaign you always have the Lawgiver with its six shot types. The main problem with the weapons lies in that they almost all feel pitiful, with the exceptions of the shotgun and the Lawgiver’s high-explosive mode. The main reasons for this are poor sound design, automatic weaponry in particular sounds subdued and sterile, and the fact that enemies tend toward being bullet-sponges, so shots seem to have little effect. Other niggles come in the form of long reload times which feel out of place with the rest of the shooting, and the time it takes for the lawgiver to change mode. It’s cool and adds some world flavour to hear the gun spout “Ricochet” (or whatever) when you change mode, but the time it sometimes takes for the gun to actually start working again can quickly get annoying, particularly when it leads to a death. This isn’t a totally uncommon occurrence either, due to the fact that Dredd generally takes so much damage per hit that he comes off as weak almost to the point of being immersion breaking; it’s jarring to see Dredd pulling amazing stunts in the cutscenes then being cut down by a shambling zombie in a couple of hits during gameplay. 

The level design isn’t atrocious, it just lacks variety. Tight corridors packed with enemies are the order of the day. Not the greatest approach in the world given the long reload times and high damage per hit of the enemies. The few open areas of the game are rarely taken advantage of. They’re either cluttered with props or just lacking in enemies to fight. Nobody wanted Serious Sam from the game, but it would’ve been nice to have a good set piece gun battle in an open area. The only real ‘arena battle’ sequence comes almost at the end of the game and it goes on for far too long, as if the designers realised that they’d forgotten to put any in the rest of the game and tried to make up for it at the end. There is also a lack of difficulty progression in the overall design of the game, you’ve seen nigh-on all of the enemies by the halfway point, and they don’t get any harder or get deployed in higher concentrations as the game goes on. Even the boss battles with the Dark Judges are dull. They manage to be both very cheap and very easy at the same time. Cheap in that they just spam their single hugely-damaging attack and easy in that once you know what you’re doing you can just run rings around them. The whole experience is extremely anticlimactic.

God damnit Judge Fire, come out from back there.

To further add to the experience, Dredd Vs Death also suffers from a few annoying bugs.  It may be a stable game, but getting stuck in the geometry, which can be just as annoying as a crash, if only because when a game crashes you don’t spend five minutes fruitlessly trying to escape the floor/wall/crate you’re stuck in before having to load up a previous save, is an ever-present danger. On top of this, there are AI problems which can cause the same load-up blues. The most glaring is the AI’s uncanny ability to get stuck in doorways or behind furniture. It only seems to afflict characters following Dredd, so generally bosses and citizens to be escorted. It’s a common enough problem that I had to retry almost every objective requiring an NPC to follow, as they would invariably get stuck on something and be unable to go where they needed to be. The most annoying instance was in the Boss battle with Judge Fire. The fight involves using sprinklers to drive him through the building, but he kept getting stuck on chairs. So what should’ve been a simple fight took a few tries and a lot of rage. More amusing is a bug that gets NPCs stuck a few frames into their walking animation making it look like they’re ice-skating everywhere with one leg in the air. Again, this manifested during a boss fight, there’s nothing funnier than Judge Mortis skating around the emergency room without a care in the world.

As a game, Judge Dredd vs Death is clearly rather lacking. And yet, it’s somehow endearing. This may be the Dredd fanboy talking, but Mega City One is such an amazing setting and Dredd is such a cool character, even at his most two dimensional, that the game really benefits from its licence. The 1995 film proved that it is in fact possible to badly realise both Dredd and the Big Meg (things that should be impossible) and yet this game gets it right. There are concessions to the limitations of technology such as the same few character models being endlessly repeated, and some ill-advised product placement (Red Bull, really?), but all in all the city is very well depicted in all its brilliant, grotty, grimy, decadent, glory. NPC models may be limited and constantly repeated, but they just look right. They have an aesthetic that really doesn’t seem all that removed from the 2000AD source material.  Dredd’s one liners too have a clipped, comic-book quality to them, even if they are delivered completely flatly by a voice actor that seems to want to be Jon St. John. Nevertheless, this combined with the other touches, like the Lawgiver’s fire modes, with its voice declaring the one selected, really add to immersion in the world.

No Comment.

This apparent fixation with creating a good version of Dredd’s world even extends into gameplay through the arrest mechanic. All human NPCs are arrestable, with the crimes and sentence of the perp being displayed on screen, complimented with an appropriate little quip from Dredd. It’s a feature that, again, adds to quality of the adaption of the source material, especially as the comic points toward the laws of Mega-City One working to ensure that all citizens are technically guilty of something. Whilst alone it’s a good gameplay idea, it is sadly it is marred by another feature: the ‘Justice Meter’. The meter seems to exist to stop you mowing down civilians, as Game Over awaits if the meter gets too low. Irritatingly though, the game doesn’t seem to be able to decide when a citizen becomes a perp that can be killed with no consequences. Even after delivering a warning to and even being shot by an enemy, sometimes killing them will lower your justice meter. Still, the arrest mechanic really works within the gameplay to make Dredd vs Death feel like a true Dredd game and not just another shooter tarted up.

The main Story mode lasts about 5-6 hours maximum, with each completed mission unlocking a new ‘Arcade Mode’ stage. Arcade mode gives a set of challenges such as arresting X perps as quickly as possible or killing Y amount of enemies. The arcade stages provide interesting distractions but aren’t much more. They tend to reuse maps from the campaign and are either stupidly easy or far too difficult. The game also features an online or VS bots battle mode. This isn’t really worth writing home about as there aren’t any players online anymore and playing against bots is just like a less fun version of Arcade Mode.  

The delights of arcade mode: shooting little robots.

Overall, Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death lives and dies on its licence. It’s currently $5.99 on GOG.com and how justified even that price is really comes down to if you want a Dredd game or just an FPS. As an FPS it’s going to scratch nobody’s itch: it’s too limited, too buggy and too unfulfilling. As a Dredd game though, it’s worth a look. Fans of the character and the setting may just get the mileage from those things to enjoy the story mode in spite of its mechanical issues.

Score (Sacrebleu il est nouveau!): As an FPS 5/10. As a Dredd Game: 7/10.