Dead to Rights: Retribution

Another pattern you'll find yourself falling into, meanwhile, is weakening your foes with gunfire before sending your wolf friend to finish them when they run off into cover. Seeing as Shadow can't really die and just collapses for a while when he's been filled with bullets (and thereby proving somewhat contradictory to the message provided in All Dogs Go to Heaven) he's also quite useful as a distraction - send him into a room full of thugs and they'll be so busy trying to murder your pooch that you'll be able to enter the room unnoticed and start popping heads.

Shadow isn't just a combat tool either, he's yours to control in stealthy sections designed to give a spot of relief after the relentless lead-spray and bad man punching contained within Jack's ongoing investigation. What with being a dog and everything Shadow has the ability to smell and hear through walls - envisaged in-game by seeing Left 4 Dead-style outlines and the goons' evil hearts pumping gangster blood around their soon-to-be corpses. As Shadow (in the demonstration en route to saving an unconscious Jack from certain peril involving a recently blown up train) it's your role to make your way up the level avoiding snipers panning back and forth across the level and picking off patrolling guards, dragging their corpses into corners where no-one will find them.

Away from his usual stance, Shadow can enter both stealthy and aggressive modes. In his stealth stance he creeps around, alerting guards with brittle yelps, watching their outline turn to an inquisitive yellow, then sneaking up behind their diverted patrol and taking them down with one-hit takedowns. When showing aggressive tendencies however he becomes a hell beast - raising his hackles, allowing him to bowl through enemies to knock them flying or leap at their faces to bloody his canines. This is clearly why those with young children should never consider letting a rabid wolf into the family home.

The basics of the action as both Jack and Shadow have been seen elsewhere, sure, but it's still rather nice being up in the rafters of a draughty train station with a sniper rifle while your faithful mutt rampages below - biting balls off with joyful abandon. It's also easy to sniff about the sudden lurch from past times that's on show with Retribution's Focus mode - or 'bullet time' - that you earn through finesse kills during combat. Retribution knows that it's not big or clever, but certainly does know that grabbing an enemy and running around with him as a meat shield before tossing him on the ground and commanding your dog to eat his face is appealing to a certain gamer mindset. Not altogether mine, nor perhaps altogether yours, but face-eating dogs will always have an audience.

Dead to Rights: Retribution is not going to be an artful treatise on gaming, nor will it be eligible at Crufts. Jack's casual banter genuinely doesn't get much further than victory brays such as "F*** you!", "Why are you f***ers still fighting?" and my personal favourite "Get out of my way! F***er!" It's big and it's dumb - yet if Volatile manages to ensure the locations are varied and the gameplay doesn't weary it has the potential to be a decent and proficient parcel of violence. Don't be surprised if 'testicle attack!' is included in the feature list on the back of the box either.