Gaming

Ouch! So near, yet so far. That's the best way I can think of opening this review.
To date there have been very few games based on the 2000 AD franchise Judge Dredd, and one movie (but we'll say no more about that "car crash" of a motion picture). The only other game that springs to mind was the utterly tragic movie tie-in on the Super Nintendo (but again the less said about that the better). So basically everything Dredd related, outside the comic series, has been utter tosh. Not a good start then :-/

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this game ain't half bad. As stated before, Dredd Vs Death is based on the long running comic series by 2000 AD and as a result has quite a bit of quality material to draw from.
Luckily, instead of concentrating on making Dredd Vs Death a contender to the likes of Half Life and Doom (and thereby screwing the format completely) Sierra and Co have put all their energies into making the game look and feel like the comic book series and this works exceptionally well. Not surprisingly the visuals are somewhat lacking, but what they loose in eye candy they more than make up for in attention to detail. In a couple of the sections of the game weather effects are put to great use and to make things interesting the rain effect is coupled with animated ground textures which is an excellent use of detail. The rest of the textures are a little bland in places, but do the job well and actually help to create the appropriate atmosphere.

As you've probably guessed by now, the player steps into the commanding size twelves of Judge Dredd himself and is tasked with finding and arresting (not killing) Judge Death and his cronies. I wont spoil the story for those of you who have yet to play through it, but I will say that the story is well written and absorbing.
To achieve this lofty goal Mr. Dredd and his Justice Department posse must bounce across Mega City One (the post-apocalyptic metropolis the series is set in) killing and arresting anyone stupid enough to get in your way. Yes, you actually get to arrest people, which is an brilliant feature but unfortunately somewhat under-supported and although it's great fun to arrest innocent bystanders for crimes such as "goldfish imprisonment" and "owning a hamster without a licence", sometimes you'd like to arrest a real criminal for something really dangerous. There are a few scripted sequences that let you fulfil this desire of mugging actual criminals, but tragically these are far too few and even then come under "must do" mission objectives. Ok, so the game was never supposed to be that open ended, but I would have liked to have seen a few random events for the sakes of re-playability.
On the plus side, the single player level design is top notch (if a little linear) and you'll happily play them a few times over. To add a little spice there is a ranking system at the end of each stage which is directly associated with how well you do (how "legal" you are) in which higher ranks grants you access to multiplayer features... but yet again, this is marred with technical problems, the main one being that it is way too easy to achieve the higher ranks, thus you'll have everything unlocked in but a few hours which defeats the point somewhat.

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The included "Arcade Mode" is pretty interesting. This gives you a series of unconnected missions in which you have to achieve specific goals, for example arresting 30 "perps" in the shortest time possible and once done, will give you access to various cheats (and a couple of extra multiplayer features). Many more Arcade missions await those of you savvy enough to unlock them in the single player experience, which is good incentive to play through the single player missions again, but, like I said before, you'll probably have achieved the top rank in most of them the first time round.
The Arcade missions are fun and engaging and although most are pretty easy a couple will have you tearing your hair out in frustration. It would have been nice for Rebellion (I "think" they did the multiplayer and Arcade aspects, but am not entirely sure) to have found some middle ground here, but it works well enough as is. Some of the missions are insanely fun (recycling the Vampires and Riot spring to mind) but again (this is becoming a recurring theme :-/ ) is tragically off balance so you'll get the feeling that you're not having quite as much fun as you could be should circumstances be different.
I have now had the game in my possession for exactly two days and have already completed all of the Story missions to the top ranking AND the vast majority (all except two) of the Arcade missions... which leads me quite nicely onwards to the next subject.

Deathmatch (and other multiplayer features) are utterly excellent but (again with the buts :-/ ) are all marred by balancing issues. On the plus side the Deathmatch levels are of the highest quality (even on par with that of the mighty Unreal Tournament) and are great fun to play (Blockwar and Riot are a blast to play, especially with the bots), in fact, I might even go so far as to say that the multiplayer maps are by far the most balanced aspect of the game so far.
Unfortunately (cus if I put another "but" in here I'd be repeating myself far too often) the weapons are in no way suitable for Deathmatch play, being that they are heinously unbalanced (there's that word again >:(). The Shotgun (for example) comes in two varieties, one of which is unbelievably powerful and balanced, the other being the biggest pile of poo you will ever have had the misfortune to eviscerate someone with. Weapons come in two distinct varieties. One is the Justice Departments own gear and the other is Citizen weaponry (bare with me, I'm going somewhere with this), with both classes having a weapon and counter-weapon. An example of which would be the Citizen 9mm semi and the Justice Department "Lawgiver"... anyone who's read the comic books will automatically see the flaw in this sentence, but for those who don't know, the Lawgiver is an extremely powerful sidearm which has multiple firing modes including (but not limited to) Incendiary (sets people on fire, bloody hurts), High-Ex (high explosive, hurts more) and Ricochet (fires round corners, doesn't hurt but is bloody annoying!)
One of the game modes included in multiplayer is the fun, but f*cking infuriating, "Judges Vs Perps". In this game mode you join one of two teams, either the Judges or the Perps (sorry for stating the obvious). The key point to this is the fact that both teams can only use the weaponry of their particular side and if you were paying attention in the last paragraph you'll know that this is utterly unbalanced to the point of being unplayable. To balance things out a bit, you could try setting one of the game options (random pickups) to yes, but this also is totally unbalanced (this is getting distinctly annoying >:( ), because most of the time you'll either come across an abundance of your own weaponry or wont find anything assigned to your team at all. In another attempt at balancing things out the Perps get the grenade launcher, but this only serves to make things worse as it is far too powerful, leading to you mopping the floor with the Justice department, even when your team is getting minced.
Still, despite it's flaws (a complete lack of customisability being one of them), Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Vampire, Judges Vs Perps and all the game modes in-between are still great fun and will see you coming back for more on several occasions (although weather or not it will stand the test of time has yet to be decided.)

Co-Op is ok. That's all I have to say about that. The game was never intended to be a Halo beater, and although it provides an interesting distraction, you wont become addicted any time soon.
One special mention goes out to the in-game music, which is of an absolutely excellent quality. Likewise the sounds and (as stated before) voice acting both deserve an Oscar. To be honest, you'd be hard pressed to find better, even amongst the super high budget titles out there (DooM 3, Halo 2, Fable etc.)

Wrapping up, I really (REALLY) want to give this game a high score... but find that I cant :(
Dredd Vs Death is such a great concept, marred only by unbalanced foundations and although it has bags of personality, chances are you'll find it somewhat lacking. For each great idea, there are two or three really bad ones and although it is possible to overlook this, sometimes it tends to overshadow what was so very nearly a great game.

79.9/100

Dammit, so near yet so far >:( Frankly, you'll either hate it or "like it a lot"... there is no love... which is a shame really... still, should mistakes be learnt from I don’t see why this game cant have a cracking sequel (should 2000 AD have the nuts to go through with another one, and I really hope they give it a try.)
Rent it or find it in the "under £5" bargain bin. I'm afraid I can't give it any higher recommendation than that.