Dead to Rights should have stayed buried

Sequels are such an ingrained part of the video-game marketplace that it feels curmudgeonly to complain about them. Yes, I'd love to see more originality, but when a game is as good as Uncharted 2 or BioShock 2, I'm not going to let that number in the title diminish my enjoyment.

But then there are games like Dead to Rights: Retribution (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). The original Dead to Rights was an adequate if uninspired crime drama that saw middling sales in 2002, but a slapdash 2005 sequel seemed to put the franchise to rest. And yet, here we are in 2010 with a new chapter in a tale that most of us lost interest in a long time ago.

The hero, Jack Slate, is as generic as his name. A grizzled vice cop with a huge chip on his shoulder, he's the only man bold enough to stand against the forces of crime and corruption that have infested his beloved Grant City. If that means the brutal slaughter of hundreds of faceless thugs, so be it.

In most of the levels, the action consists of stumbling onto a crime scene and then methodically killing everyone you see. You can either punch or shoot your way out of trouble, but neither option is satisfying due to sluggish controls. Deal enough pain and you're rewarded with a burst of slow-motion "bullet time", a gimmick that's gone stale over the decade since The Matrix came out.

The distinguishing feature of Dead to Rights is Jack's canine companion, Shadow. In Retribution, Shadow serves mostly as sidekick; you can order him to pounce on enemies while Jack plugs away at their buddies. The dog also takes the lead in a couple of stealth sequences, sneaking up on unsuspecting guards before ripping out their throats.

Just Cause 2 (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) is another sequel to a game that didn't make much of a splash the first time around. In the 2006 original, CIA operative Rico Rodriguez overthrew a Caribbean dictator; this year, his target is a Southeast Asian dictator known as Baby Panay. Rico's method remains the same: Create as much havoc as possible.

Usually, that means parachuting into one of Panay's installations and blowing up stuff. You have every imaginable weapon at your disposal, from pistols to rocket launchers, and vehicles range from motorcycles to a full-size passenger jet. The island is essentially a gigantic playground of destruction, giving you dozens of places to demolish and even more ways to get the job done.

Eventually, though, the missions start to repeat themselves, and once you get over the pretty explosions, nagging issues become more annoying. I found it particularly irritating that it can take more ammo to bring down a human than to blow up a fuel tank. Just Cause 2 offers plenty of bang for the buck, but I wish its creators had spent more time fine-tuning the gameplay, graphics and story.

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