Game developers who secretly want to be making movies should maybe realise that the two mediums are not the same. When I think of some of the games I'm currently enjoying, like Ikaruga and Super Monkey Ball, I can't envision them ever being adapted into movies, at least not good ones. Equally when I think of my favourite film, Jaws, how could you ever turn that into a game? The only way I can think of doing it is to make a game that consists of one massive ten-hour boss battle (hmmm, I might have something there). I was at an event during the Edinburgh film festival where Jason Kingsley of broached the subject of creating a game based on a film, notably Aliens. He outlined it quite neatly when he said that you have to deconstruct the film down to its barest elements and then build it back up from there.

Some developers have successfully done this. I thought Black Isle did a great job recreating the isolation and gore with The Thing. vs Predator 1 and 2 on the used the dark eerie atmosphere of the films merged with the high tech weaponry against a low-tech foe. There is also Blackhawk Down from Novalogic with its frenetic urban squad battles. So let's imagine we are going to try and recreate a John Woo film as a game. What are the base elements from a game perspective? It must surely be lots of guns, bullets, and slow motion. The game that comes to mind of course is Max Payne, which took those elements and then built such great game around them. Dead to Rights on the other hand tries to create an action game by mixing in too many things together, some better than others, but ultimately they rarely excite or thrill.

The story is the kind of nonsense that even Hollywood has been shunning since the nineties. You play a renegade cop called Jack Slate...with a dog. I think that's all I really need to say. It is a cliché followed by a cliché all wrapped up in some violence. Admittedly it's not totally terrible and with a few twists and turns, the odd nice cut scene, it almost becomes interesting. The lead character though could have done with a little more emotion beyond the gruff deadpan delivery.

The main changes from the version consist of a welcome difficulty option, and the default difficulty is also much more reasonable than the original's painful awkwardness. Graphically though the game has not faired well at all. While the animations are as smooth and wonderful as ever the characters look decidedly dodgy and the effects rather muted. The scenery and the lighting all have a washed out blandness. It does all run smoothly but given that it looks more like an N64 title at times that is the least that can be expected.

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