Deathrow is one of those games I really didn’t know what to think of when it was announced for the Xbox. I watched it go thru development, with not much buzz or fanfare from the developers or press either way. Even after playing the game for about 30 minutes or so, I still thought it was nothing special. Then for some reason, around an hour or so into the game it just seemed to click, and from that point out, it’s been a multiplayer favorite. Even rivaling Halo and TimeSplitters 2 as the most played title for when friends come over. Given they don’t have an aversion to strong… STRONG language.
The concept is simple enough. A game of four on four, two-minute quarters, score points by throwing a charged disc thru an upright circular goal, and earn money to do so. However, that’s where it’s similarity to current sporting genres fade. In Deathrow, you can hit and kick other players, actually any players, even your own. You can charge up the disc and huck it at the opposing goalie to knock him down so you can grab the disc again and score. If one is so inclined you can also win the match by just flat out beating the crap out of the other team until they are all unconscious.
Thru various powerups in the arenas, you can grab more cash, health, or attack powerups to inflict more damage on your opponent. Powerups are very important in Deathrow, because if you are injured in a quarter and neglect to grab a health powerup, you’ll end up paying anywhere from 1000 credits to 100000 credits to heal your players, which means you’ll have that much less money to train your players in-between matches or buy new players who want to join your team.
There are a few modes in Deathrow, such as Challenge, Single Match, and a Tutorial for first timers. Most players will spend the bulk of their time in Challenge mode, which functions essentially like a season mode. Players will move thru the ranks in each division until reaching the top of the ladder. Along the way, you’ll get messages that appear in the lower left corner of the selection screen, which will offer you advertising contracts, new players who want to join your team, experimental performance enhancing drugs, or teams wanting to challenge you to get their entry into the league. Surprisingly enough, the most challenging and difficult teams you’ll play will be thru this side-challenge method. Looking at the stats, the side-teams are usually wildly hopped up, and at times they fight dirtier that the typical team so they’ll be a good way to test your skills in-between matches. They can also be a good way to drain your cash funds to zero if you end up taking a beating and then losing the match, so you’ll likely want to accept those challenges only when you’ve got cash to spare and a strong team you know how to use.
The game gives you a choice of 4 initial teams to use, but you’ll unlock other teams as you progress thru the game and earn credits towards unlocking others. For each match you’ll be awarded a number of Unlock credits, which can be used to unlock various arenas or teams. The amount of credits you are awarded all depends on which difflculty setting you have your career set for. Three difficulty settings allow you to tailor the game to your liking: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Most first time players will want to start on the Easy setting, but veteran sports game fans looking for a challenge will want to test their mettle on Normal or Hard, although Hard can be thumb numbingly difficult.
The controls are well thought out and easy to use. The Y button is jump, X to roll or dive, A to punch/pass, and B to kick/shoot. Pressing A and B will do a throw or grapple. You can also slide or tackle opponents by using the triggers and the punch/kick buttons at the same time. This is especially useful when trying to grab the disc from an opponent, as it will put them on the ground and give you possession of the disc. The black button is reserved for switching between players on your team if there are any that are being computer controlled, which you’ll need if the player you’re using gets beaten down and knocked out.
A useful and smart feature Southend included in the game is the ability to determine the overall method your team uses in their technique. You begin each game in neutral status, but using the d-pad you can change this to Defense or Maximum Defense, where the team as a whole will play more to keep the opponents from scoring, or go the other way and set it to Aggressive or Very Aggressive, where the team will concentrate more on fighting and pummeling the opposing team into the ground. This can be changed on the fly at any point during gameplay, so it can come in very handy when you’re getting your head handed to you in points. You can easily switch the team over to the Very Aggressive setting, and concentrate on KOing the opposing team since you can’t win on points. Overall, the game has a very slick feel, but somehow maintains the underground atmosphere it is shooting for.
Gripes are minor, but the most noticeable is the ability to evade any number of attackers by simply rolling and dodging until you can get a clear shot. It’s not a glaring error, but I actually dodged and rolled for an entire quarter with the disc in hand, popping off shots at will when I got a clear line, and picking up the disc again, only to roll around until I got another shot. A counteractive move for the dodge/roll move would have made the gameplay a tad more balanced but other than that, it’s a solid game, with big potential for future versions.
Upon first play, it’s obvious that the little yellow “Only on Xbox” means something in the case of Deathrow in terms of graphics. Character models are exceptional, and animate extremely well, and there is no noticeable slowdown at any time during the game. The arenas are also great examples of believable textures and bump mapping. Even the arena walls and floors are textured in such a way as to evoke the levels and areas in games such as Halo or Dead Or Alive 3. They become even more noticeable when the glowing disc is near, as it casts a glow on anything close by and also leaves a light trail as it flies so it’s easier to spot. Metal objects and armor reflect as they should and make good use of the hardware.
When performing grapples the animation goes into slow motion and closes in to give you a good view of the action and does a Matrix-esque whoosh sound to give it a little extra flair. The voices don’t match up very cleanly to the mouth animations though, which is the only thing that is graphically imperfect about the game. Other than that, it’s a great-looking game.
Deathrow comes with it’s own standard music tracks, mainly consisting of basic techno beats, but thankfully, they allow the use of the Xbox’ custom soundtrack feature to play your own songs during the game. Doing so dramatically changes the tone and atmosphere of the game so much it makes me wonder why the feature isn’t included in more sports titles. The voice acting is surprisingly good, and players have their own distinctive voice and accent.
For such a violent game, the battle sounds are sparse with the exception of cracking bones on occasion, which seems to appear far too infrequent for the amount of beating being done. The announcer is believable enough, but he only is present to announce the teams at the beginning of the match, and to announce the winner at the end. The clear button however… is the fun button. This button is devoted exclusively to cursing. Foul, dirty, “you kiss your mother with that mouth?” cursing that up until this point, didn’t exist in video games. The button is actually called the “taunt” button, and outside of simply being there to fill your Dolby Digital with more “F” words than it’s designed to handle, it can be used to piss off the goalie enough to lure him away so you or a teammate can score. Inventive.
The fact that Deathrow is a sports title, it has an inherent replayability, especially because it allows you to have your buddies all on the same team or split up into 2 teams with two human players and two computer-controlled players. System link play is also available making 8-player matches possible, whether they be thru simple system link cables, or thru one of the online gaming services, XBConnect or GameSpy. I was unable to test the system link play, but from various sources around the web it seems to work fairly well with a minimum of lag. The single player experience is no slouch, but the season seems a little bit short, as it only takes about 20 matches to reach the top of the heap. Naturally, you must win each of the 20 matches to proceed, so for some this may take longer than others.
Deathrow is a surprisingly good sports title and a nice surprise for Xbox fans in a busy holiday season. Undoubtedly, there will be more and a few gamers who will be turned off by the crude language used and will pass this title up for other, more friendly titles, but most gamers would do well to give the game a look. If you’ve ever played a game of NBA2k3 and wished it were hopped up testosterone with full contact bludgeoning, this is the game to have.
