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"The verdict is in: Dredd delivers a great game"

Judge Dredd lays down the law and dishes out the hurt on evil-doers in this game, which is based on the movie of the same title. With his trusty Lawgiver at his side and an impressive arsenal to play around with, the no-nonsense comic book hero doesn't pull any punches as he embarks on a lengthy platforming adventure. How does Dredd hold up in the court of good gaming? I'd say he does very well.

This game closely follows the plot of the movie. The setting is a post-apocalyptic future where everyone lives in a large domed city and the barren wasteland outside is called "the cursed earth". Crime is rampant in the city, and replacing the collapsed police force of old are the Judges, specially trained individuals who wield the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Dredd is one of these peacekeepers. In this game, he has to confront numerous criminal elements and a conspiracy by sinister forces to do him in.

Those who haven't seen the movie may find the plot developments here somewhat confusing, as the game has a tendency to gloss over important scenes that help to explain what's going on. It's a game for those who have already seen the movie. It does its best to tell the story, considering that it's from an era of gaming when the storyline wasn't all that important to the game-play. At its heart, this is an action game.

Dredd runs and guns his way through seven chapters, each with three levels. At the beginning of each chapter, we're given a brief synopsis of what's going on; then we're given a primary objective and an optional secondary objective. In each level, Dredd has to complete his primary objective and reach the level's exit. Primary objectives are usually straight forward. Destroy all the ammo crates in the area, activate the computer terminals to close security doors, and so on. Secondary objectives range from defeating all the bad guys in the level to rescuing hostages. Completing secondary objectives and arresting bad guys (as opposed to gunning them down) boosts your game score.

An interesting feature that adds flavor to the game is Dredd's ability to arrest bad guys. There's a good variety of bad guys here, and some of them will surrender when Dredd smacks 'em with a rubber stun bullet. Then Dredd can arrest the guy and confiscate illegal drugs or weapons the guy was carrying. Some well armored guys can be stunned with a grenade and then arrested. Others don't want to be taken alive and will fight to the death.

Dredd has an impressive arsenal of weapons at his disposal, all in the form of ammunition for his Lawgiver pistol. Aside from basic ammo, he can get the rubber stun bullets, heat seeking bullets, incendiary bullets, armor piercing bullets, grenades, and a couple others. While his basic bullets are in unlimited supply, his more useful weapons offer a limited number of shots. Dredd has to use strategy and watch his ammo supply. The various levels have ammo pickups scattered about in addition to hearts that replenish Dredd's health bar and a few power-ups. There are also extra lives to be found. Much like in the Sonic games, the extra lives are hidden in secret areas. Looking for them and finding them all is a lot of fun.

Dredd can also fight his enemies at close quarters, punching and kicking. A nice detail in the design that sets this game apart from most others of the era is that Dredd doesn't take damage if he runs into a bad guy. He only takes damage from a guy's attacks. That's the way it should be.

The way he changes ammo is a bit awkward. We have to crouch while pressing button 2 to cycle through our available ammo. Considering that the Game Gear has two buttons and they're used for jumping and firing our weapon here, I'm not sure how else it could have been done. The good news is that we can change ammo while the game is paused. The rest of the controls all work very well. Dredd can aim in eight directions. Kudos to the designers for this little detail! That's the way things should be! While walking around normally, he'll eventually go into a jog. He can run with a double tap of the directional button, and he jumps farther while running.

Level designs are appropriately labyrinthine, offering us some good exploration. The levels here are just the right size. Not too large, not too small. There are plenty of secret areas to discover with ammo caches, power-ups, and extra lives. In addition to running and gunning, Dredd climbs ladders and uses lateral hand-over-hand bars to get around. He also has to ride moving platforms over abysses and floor hazards. There are some parts during late-game that I don't care for all that much, such as when he has to traverse an area full of spikes on the walls, floor, and ceiling, using moving platforms to get around. But these parts are brief enough that I can forgive it.

Another nice feature is computer terminals that provide updated status reports on Dredd's mission objectives, ammo supply, game score, and other stats. There's at least one terminal in each level. Very cool.

This game is pretty difficult, on the whole. It takes a bit of practice and learning the level designs to make it to the end. It also takes some experimentation to figure out which bad guys can be arrested and which ones require harsher treatment. With the learning curve conquered, it becomes quite manageable.

Visually, this game is impressive. Cityscapes, the barren wasteland, interiors of structures and underground caverns... Everything looks good. The wasteland in particular has some great-looking scenery. The cityscapes have a lot of detail in the backgrounds. Dredd and his opponents are decently sized (not too large, not too small). They're also well animated. Bullets and explosions look about as good as they're going to get on the Game Gear. There is just a little slowdown late in the game, when there are numerous moving platforms about.

Background music is pretty good. There's nothing annoying here. Most of it fits the scene well, setting an appropriate mood while managing to be unobtrusive. I like the theme for underground caverns, and music during boss encounters is appropriate to the scene. Sound effects are about as good as they're going to get on the Game Gear. Everything has an appropriate effect, from Dredd's footsteps to grenades exploding. Some of the bullets have lackluster effects, but that's better than if they had annoying effects. An effect accompanies the disarming and arrest of a bad guy so that we're not left wondering if we were successful (if you don't arrest him right away, he'll pick up his dropped weapon and resume his assault). Effects also alert us that we've completed primary and secondary objectives. I think the effects in this game are all well done. There's nothing here that grates on me.

Games based on movies have a track record of not turning out all that well. I'd say that Judge Dredd is an exception. He delivers an admirable performance on the Game Gear, offering us some solid action with plenty of twists. There are just a couple of annoying parts late in the game. Other than that, this is a perfectly good game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/05, Updated 08/19/11

Game Release: Judge Dredd (US, 1995)