There’s something captivating about the down-and-out cop archetype. These social pariahs – while not necessarily original, having existed in film since the Fifties – remain endlessly watchable, their self-destructive ‘fuck the rules’ attitude demonstrating human, fallible character.

We’ve recently been introduced to the new-look Max Payne: bald, sporting a paunch, and looking like his addiction to painkillers has reached an all-time high. Then there’s the re-envisioned Sam Fisher. Sure, he’s lost the scruffy beard from 2007, but the agent is still rogue, and still working to his own agenda. Then, as you may have guessed, there’s Jack Slate.

Dead To Rights: Retribution, the first game in the series after a four-year hiatus, wipes the slate clean, so to speak, starting the franchise anew with a focus on the tough-cop antics of the antihero protagonist. “I think the biggest bonus has been the new generation of consoles,” producer Imre Jele told games™. “When you look at it and you say I want to combine hand-to-hand combat with gunplay and the use of Shadow, there is no way that would be able to run on the last generation. It really helped us to do a new start, and we’re really hoping that from there we can continue with a new series of games.”

Dead To Rights’ previous incarnations have been unimpressive to say the least, but with Volatile Games on board there’s hope that this entry will strike the right chord. Volatile is dedicated to creating mature titles, and given that violence has been Dead To Right’s raison d’être in the past, it could be just the team needed to introduce the right balance of atmosphere and aggression into Retribution’s play.

Yet Jele is keen to insist that the violence is far from gratuitous. “Features like the takedowns are brutal, I cannot lie about that. It is an aggressive game, but at the same time I am unhappy about this because I know people are going to see that and not be able to see anything else. They’re going to think it’s just an aggressive game with a lot of blood and that’s all, but I would like to believe that the game is also mature because of the sophistication and quality of the story, and the complexity of the gameplay. The violence is not there for violence’s sake: it’s necessary to tell the story. But don’t get me wrong, the short answer is yes, it’s bloody.”

Darker and more sinister, then, but not necessarily more serious: the ‘testi-kills’ – a move that sees Slate’s canine companion tear the testicles from enemies – being testament to this. But through the dark underworld of Grant City – a place that mimics Tim Burton’s Gotham and Frank Miller’s Sin City – and the character development within, Jele hopes Retribution will be elevated above such comedic carnage.

The tighter gameplay should also pay dividends. The auto-lock on system of previous titles has been rejected, and bullet-time has been replaced by a focus mode. “I’m a sucker for bullet time,” said Jele, “But the problem from a game-design point of view is that if you put it in the game, it becomes the only mechanic. It takes over everything else. So, we replaced it with Focus mode: if you play skilfully then you’re rewarded with focus, which can be used to slow down time, giving you more time to aim, you can deal bigger damage, and it’s easier to dodge incoming blows.”

… continued