A dreadful, miserable blockbuster experience
with Lyndsey Beatty
The summer of 1995 was a mixed bag. It was a great year for Mortal Kombat, kind of a good year for Batman but a bad year for a few blockbusters that were supposed to knock our socks off. Imagine being a Sylvester Stallone-led vehicle and you bomb at the box office. Judge Dredd was a small bomb but a bomb nonetheless, and the game version didn't fare much better, either. Like some of Sly's other films, it should have thrown in the towel because it was no Rocky.
Judge Dredd is not an accurate representation of the comic book it originated from. Like most tie-in games of the era, the story explained in the game is predicated on whether you went to the movies first. In this case, I didn't; I knew of the comic and was somewhat acquainted with the film so when I saw the game I didn't get that excited. I'm so glad I didn't muster the excitement because whew, boy, I got a lesson in justice and mediocrity quickly.
There is nothing about this game that rises above just OK. The character sprites are small and weird, the backgrounds are nondescript, and the colors are just drab and boring. The environments look plain with little thought to jazz them up. I get it, it's a prison state in a dystopian future and it isn't going to look like Rainbow Brite. But, come on, there must be something beyond a boring neutral prison-gray landscape.
And the soundtrack fares just as bad as the graphics. There is not one song, in the introduction or beyond, that makes me want to listen. I was so turned off by the music, I played it on mute and had just as good an experience as I did with sound on. There was nothing going on audio-wise that made this a worthwhile experience.
And then there's the gameplay. Heaven help you if you didn't get a manual with Dredd because there will be navigation issues as well as a ton of "How do I do this?" going on. It took wandering around the second level for 30 minutes before I realized how to arrest folks and where I needed to go to find the last few enemies that are required to be vanquished before unlocking the level exit. Dredd's levels are designed terribly and could have benefited from a map immediately. If Super Metroid - yes, I know, a far superior product - can show out with a map feature, Dredd could, too. But here we are, ignorant and lost and no longer playing this mediocre mess of a tie-in.
Don't watch this version of Dredd and don't play this version of Dredd. If you find yourself sitting through this tripe beyond the introduction screen, know that I am, in fact, judging you.
Lyndsey Beatty is editor-in-chief of Gaming Insurrection. She can be reached by email at lyndseyb@gaminginsurrection.com
Judge Dredd is not an accurate representation of the comic book it originated from. Like most tie-in games of the era, the story explained in the game is predicated on whether you went to the movies first. In this case, I didn't; I knew of the comic and was somewhat acquainted with the film so when I saw the game I didn't get that excited. I'm so glad I didn't muster the excitement because whew, boy, I got a lesson in justice and mediocrity quickly.
There is nothing about this game that rises above just OK. The character sprites are small and weird, the backgrounds are nondescript, and the colors are just drab and boring. The environments look plain with little thought to jazz them up. I get it, it's a prison state in a dystopian future and it isn't going to look like Rainbow Brite. But, come on, there must be something beyond a boring neutral prison-gray landscape.
And the soundtrack fares just as bad as the graphics. There is not one song, in the introduction or beyond, that makes me want to listen. I was so turned off by the music, I played it on mute and had just as good an experience as I did with sound on. There was nothing going on audio-wise that made this a worthwhile experience.
And then there's the gameplay. Heaven help you if you didn't get a manual with Dredd because there will be navigation issues as well as a ton of "How do I do this?" going on. It took wandering around the second level for 30 minutes before I realized how to arrest folks and where I needed to go to find the last few enemies that are required to be vanquished before unlocking the level exit. Dredd's levels are designed terribly and could have benefited from a map immediately. If Super Metroid - yes, I know, a far superior product - can show out with a map feature, Dredd could, too. But here we are, ignorant and lost and no longer playing this mediocre mess of a tie-in.
Don't watch this version of Dredd and don't play this version of Dredd. If you find yourself sitting through this tripe beyond the introduction screen, know that I am, in fact, judging you.
Lyndsey Beatty is editor-in-chief of Gaming Insurrection. She can be reached by email at lyndseyb@gaminginsurrection.com