Don't get sold on impressive eye candy—this game is a honey trap! It seduces players with concepts that sound beyond awesome and flashes fantastic cyberpunk-styled imagery that makes imagination run wild. Don't be fooled, as I was, because this game is shallow, boring, and spirit-crushing! Allow me to elaborate and wipe off its deceiving glamor.

I got hooked on this game after stumbling upon its gameplay footage on YouTube. The footage showed Level 1, where Judge Dredd walked around an impressive futuristic location, arresting everyone he had laid his eyes on: liberal protestors, graffiti artists, random pedestrians, and extremely fat people, who used undercarriages to support the weight of their huge bellies. "Wow", I thought to myself, "a game where you play as a super-cop in a dystopian future? Judge, jury, and executioner in one face, at that? This game must be awesome!" After a series of arrests, Dredd was sent to handle a bank robbery. His weapon was the coolest gun imaginable: a sci-fi pistol with six different modes of fire, which ranged from burst mode to heat-seeking bullets. Not only that, but after shooting at the perpetrators, some of them surrendered and waited to be apprehended. Dredd could also shoot weapons directly from his hands, disarming his enemies. As if that wasn't awesome enough, straight after the robbery, Dredd was sent to protect citizens from vampires. This footage sold me on the game, and I got it on Steam. Soon after, my disappointment was immeasurable, and my day was ruined, as the saying goes. Instead of being captivated by unique game mechanics and tight action, I should have paid attention to the details.

The arrest mechanic gets old quick. As much as it is fun at first to arrest mega-fat people for some contrived reasons, such as "possession of a goldfish without a license", it is revealed to be meaningless fast. There is no reason to arrest anyone besides when an objective specifically orders to. There is no reward or punishment for arresting innocent people. Disarming dangerous perpetrators makes them harmless, making their arrest an extra step without a purpose. There is a simple reputation system that moves an arrow up and down depending on certain actions. Arrest anyone, and the arrow goes up. Kill a civilian or a submitting perpetrator, and the arrow goes down. When the arrow reaches the bottom, it's a game over. Nothing happens when the arrow is above this point. This reputation mechanic added a bit of suspense in the beginning; it made me question: "Should I pull the trigger or should I change my ammo type to avoid damaging civilians first? "Maybe the suspect is submitting; I should ceasefire and take a quick look." This suspense evaporated as soon as the realization of the dull simplicity of enemy AI hits (at Level 2, to be precise).

If I didn't know this game came out in 2003, you could not convince me the game's AI was not scripted in Unity Engine during someone's weekend. I have not seen AI as dumb as in this game anywhere besides quickly put together asset flipper games sold on Steam for less than a dollar. I am not over-exaggerating. Human enemies run around randomly, sometimes stopping to shoot. That's their loop. Vampires run towards the player. That's it. There are also zombies. They are the slow version of vampires. Enemies in this game are not a threat, even on the highest difficulty. Why would anyone even bother arresting mindless dummies? There is no immersion to justify it. Besides, most of the time, Dredd has to fight zombies and vampires, which cannot be arrested. After Level 1, civilians rarely appear, so the best tactic is to run forward and kill everyone without a second thought. Doing otherwise would be a waste of time.

What a shame. Looking at the signature weapon of Dredd, a sci-fi gun with six different modes of fire, I cannot help but wonder about the wasted potential of putting such a conceptually amazing weapon in such a dreadful game. The gun can switch between burst mode, armor-piercing, ricochet, incendiary, high explosive, and heat-seeking bullets. This game does not deserve this gun. It would be so awesome in a game like "Duke Nukem 3D" or "Doom," but in "Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death," all these awesome features do not have much application. There are no armored enemies nor robots to use armor-piercing against. Enemies don't use covers to justify ricocheting bullets. So it is with heat seekers. High explosives are not strong enough to validate their high ammo consumption. Incendiary claims to be effective against undead enemies, but it is much faster and takes less ammo to kill enemies using standard burst mode. The last point applies to every mode, actually. It is not just pointless to use any other mode than standard burst, but it is also counter-productive, since fancy fire modes consume more ammo from the shared ammo bank while killing enemies slower. Ammo count is an issue for the gun since, lore-wise, it is DNA-locked and can be used only by Judges. That means, enemies won't drop ammo for the gun, instead providing "secondary weapon" alternatives, which are bland "pistol-shotgun-rifle-machinegun" variations. As such, using the gun with anything but a standard burst will quickly drain the ammo bank, further disincentivizing the use of the cool features.

There are no additional mechanics to save this mess. As a result, this game offers a boring shooting range with brain-dead dummies as targets. Sometimes, dummies have to be arrested. That's all. Despite having very impressive visual design, shallow gameplay takes away motivation for immersing oneself in this game.

It took me 3 hours to finish this game, and these 3 hours felt VEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY long because of how BORING it was to play this game. There is no captivating story, and there is no enjoyable gameplay. Only beautiful cyberpunk visuals and a cool-looking arrest mechanic, which stimulates imagination more than it can actually deliver. The last sentence may be used as a conclusion for the whole game.

Don't get sold on impressive eye candy—this game is a honey trap! It seduces players with concepts that sound beyond awesome and flashes fantastic cyberpunk-styled imagery that makes imagination run wild. Don't be fooled, as I was, because this game is shallow, boring, and spirit-crushing! Allow me to elaborate and wipe off its deceiving glamor. I got hooked on this game after stumbling upon its gameplay footage on YouTube. The footage showed Level 1, where Judge Dredd walked around an impressive futuristic location, arresting everyone he had laid his eyes on: liberal protestors, graffiti artists, random pedestrians, and extremely fat people, who used undercarriages to support the weight of their huge bellies. "Wow", I thought to myself, "a game where you play as a super-cop in a dystopian future? Judge, jury, and executioner in one face, at that? This game must be awesome!" After a series of arrests, Dredd was sent to handle a bank robbery. His weapon was the coolest gun imaginable: a sci-fi pistol with six different modes of fire, which ranged from burst mode to heat-seeking bullets. Not only that, but after shooting at the perpetrators, some of them surrendered and waited to be apprehended. Dredd could also shoot weapons directly from his hands, disarming his enemies. As if that wasn't awesome enough, straight after the robbery, Dredd was sent to protect citizens from vampires. This footage sold me on the game, and I got it on Steam. Soon after, my disappointment was immeasurable, and my day was ruined, as the saying goes. Instead of being captivated by unique game mechanics and tight action, I should have paid attention to the details. The arrest mechanic gets old quick. As much as it is fun at first to arrest mega-fat people for some contrived reasons, such as "possession of a goldfish without a license", it is revealed to be meaningless fast. There is no reason to arrest anyone besides when an objective specifically orders to. There is no reward or punishment for arresting innocent people. Disarming dangerous perpetrators makes them harmless, making their arrest an extra step without a purpose. There is a simple reputation system that moves an arrow up and down depending on certain actions. Arrest anyone, and the arrow goes up. Kill a civilian or a submitting perpetrator, and the arrow goes down. When the arrow reaches the bottom, it's a game over. Nothing happens when the arrow is above this point. This reputation mechanic added a bit of suspense in the beginning; it made me question: "Should I pull the trigger or should I change my ammo type to avoid damaging civilians first? "Maybe the suspect is submitting; I should ceasefire and take a quick look." This suspense evaporated as soon as the realization of the dull simplicity of enemy AI hits (at Level 2, to be precise). If I didn't know this game came out in 2003, you could not convince me the game's AI was not scripted in Unity Engine during someone's weekend. I have not seen AI as dumb as in this game anywhere besides quickly put together asset flipper games sold on Steam for less than a dollar. I am not over-exaggerating. Human enemies run around randomly, sometimes stopping to shoot. That's their loop. Vampires run towards the player. That's it. There are also zombies. They are the slow version of vampires. Enemies in this game are not a threat, even on the highest difficulty. Why would anyone even bother arresting mindless dummies? There is no immersion to justify it. Besides, most of the time, Dredd has to fight zombies and vampires, which cannot be arrested. After Level 1, civilians rarely appear, so the best tactic is to run forward and kill everyone without a second thought. Doing otherwise would be a waste of time. What a shame. Looking at the signature weapon of Dredd, a sci-fi gun with six different modes of fire, I cannot help but wonder about the wasted potential of putting such a conceptually amazing weapon in such a dreadful game. The gun can switch between burst mode, armor-piercing, ricochet, incendiary, high explosive, and heat-seeking bullets. This game does not deserve this gun. It would be so awesome in a game like "Duke Nukem 3D" or "Doom," but in "Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death," all these awesome features do not have much application. There are no armored enemies nor robots to use armor-piercing against. Enemies don't use covers to justify ricocheting bullets. So it is with heat seekers. High explosives are not strong enough to validate their high ammo consumption. Incendiary claims to be effective against undead enemies, but it is much faster and takes less ammo to kill enemies using standard burst mode. The last point applies to every mode, actually. It is not just pointless to use any other mode than standard burst, but it is also counter-productive, since fancy fire modes consume more ammo from the shared ammo bank while killing enemies slower. Ammo count is an issue for the gun since, lore-wise, it is DNA-locked and can be used only by Judges. That means, enemies won't drop ammo for the gun, instead providing "secondary weapon" alternatives, which are bland "pistol-shotgun-rifle-machinegun" variations. As such, using the gun with anything but a standard burst will quickly drain the ammo bank, further disincentivizing the use of the cool features. There are no additional mechanics to save this mess. As a result, this game offers a boring shooting range with brain-dead dummies as targets. Sometimes, dummies have to be arrested. That's all. Despite having very impressive visual design, shallow gameplay takes away motivation for immersing oneself in this game. It took me 3 hours to finish this game, and these 3 hours felt VEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY long because of how BORING it was to play this game. There is no captivating story, and there is no enjoyable gameplay. Only beautiful cyberpunk visuals and a cool-looking arrest mechanic, which stimulates imagination more than it can actually deliver. The last sentence may be used as a conclusion for the whole game.