Judge Dredd Video Games

There have been a couple Judge Dredd video games in the past, but none of them were that good. I thought the Judge Dredd vs. zombies phone game was decent, but phone games barely even count as real games. What I want is a quality console game where you play as Judge Dredd. For best results, I'd say that they should combine elements from the movie and the comicbooks, like having more aliens and weird sci-fi stuff than the movie, but maybe a little less than the comicbooks. Judges and their guns should have a movie inspired look, but I think the lawmaster bikes should be much more like they were in the comicbooks. Where gameplay is concerned, this game should be an open world third person shooter with a little bit of RPG thrown into the mix. Picture Skyrim combined with Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, and Far Cry 3, set in the world of Judge Dredd. I'd say a large section of Mega City One should be completely open to the player to explore, and filled with both simple crimes to stop and also some more complex side quests like Skyrim. Traversal should be primarily reliant on Dredd's lawmaster bike, which would work like a horse in Red Dead where you can summon it from afar, since he does that a lot in the comicbooks. It's a big city though, and even if you're only in part of it, this game would be best with a map roughly the size of Skyrim's. So with that in mind, a fast travel system should be set up similarly to Far Cry 3's, so in this case, Judge Dredd can fast travel to Justice Department outposts around the city, then take his bike or any other vehicle he finds the rest of the way. Combat should work almost identically to Red Dead Redemption's third person shooter style, except with a melee button for getting up close and personal. Also, there should be more than one melee move so that you can take guys down hand to hand without getting bored. The bounty system from Red Dead could be adapted to serve as Justice Department assignments, except you don't choose whether or not you take the perp in alive or dead. Now picture that, but with an RPG element too. Due to the extreme versatility of the lawgiver pistol, I'm thinking maybe that should be the only weapon the player uses, with an inventory wheel like Far Cry and Red Dead for selecting different types of ammo instead of different weapons. Defeated enemies should drop money and regular bullets, but the special stuff like high ex. or ricochet ammo and health syringes like Far Cry 3 should have to be bought at the Justice Department or one of its outposts like the way you buy things in Far Cry 3. There should  also be items that you can pick up and either sell or use in a quest. These could be stored in an inventory like Skyrim's, along with possibly other ammo types that don't fit in the quick select wheel. If this is the case, the wheel should work like a favorites menu, where the player decides which items are available in it. Found items being equipped and used doesn't really make sense since judges have better stuff than most criminals, plus they have to be in uniform, but it could get boring if there's no way to get better gear. I'd say that XP points earned by taking down criminals should be spent in a perk menu with a few different skill trees like an armor tree, a lawgiver tree, maybe a vehicle tree, and probably a couple others. Maybe a negotiation and speech skill tree. Yeah, I think that'd make a cool gameplay element doing things like negotiating hostage situations and stuff.  In terms of the main quest line, I'm pretty flexible, but Id like it to involve the Angel gang and the Dark Judges, but the story shouldn't be just the generic villain team up against hero story. That's been done so many times now. I want something fresh. The reason I suggest these villains is that fighting the Angel gang could result in a few quests going outside the city into the Cursed Earth, and a fight with the Dark Judges could take place in their alternate universe. Or maybe the Angel gang could be in a separate DLC quest line instead, which could open up a portion of the Cursed Earth for exploration, complete with side quests and random acts of violence to stop. Badically picture the Fallout games except you're Judge Dredd. They could also make an expansion that opens up more of the city, or one that takes place on the moon colony. Or best yet, they could release a disk with all of these areas on it to download onto your system (since I like hard copies of things), and also include new perks to get, new vehicles to drive, and new lawgiver ammo types. Maybe the game could have some multiplayer in the form of Justice Department training simulations where judges shoot each other for practice. Ideally these could be accessed directly from single player by visiting a specific areas. That said, it's not a necessity. The only other thing this game does need is the option to yell "I AM THE LAW!"

Real Life Lawgivers

Judge Dredd's lawgiver is one of my favorite guns ever. It looks cool, but the coolest thing about it is its ability to switch between so many different types of ammo and firing modes. So I just want to know: Are they working on making those, and if not, why not? I mean, I obviously don't expect them to instantly make something as advanced as a lawgiver, but even a pistol that can switch between regular and hollow point is a step in the right direction. Then you take that and add rubber bullets for crowd control, and a couple alternate firing modes like burst or full auto and go from there. As for the actual switching, I think the mags should be in front of the handle, each with a different ammo type, and depending on how many there are, they should either slide from side to side, or be on some sort of rotating thing. Once there are enough of them, I think it should be a bigger gun to support the large ammo wheel. I like the idea of the sepparate mags being exposed, so you can reload one while firing another. For the switching mechanism, voice commands would be nice, but it would have to be configured for one specific user so it didn't react to others' commands. Or to start out, a little switch on the handle would be fine, but once you get enough variety, it would get cumbersome. This would probably be extremely expensive to make, and there are probably some technical things I'm overlooking, but it would be cool if something like this existed.

Dredd

This is one of the best comic book movies I've seen, and by far the bloodiest, which contributes to it being one of the best. Also, I usually don't see movies in 3D when I have a choice, but I did for this one, and I think it actually was better. There was blood flying off the screen in slow motion, and some other stuff like that, so I think they made good use of the 3D technology at their disposal. What I like about Judge Dredd is that he's not a hero, and the new movie didn't try to make him one. They said that they were trying to make it so that you can watch the movie, then pick up a comic book, and it's the exact same character, and I think they did a great job with that. There have been some comic book movies that I loved, but some of the characters were pretty different from their comic book selves. For example, the Nolanverse Batman movie villains. All of them were terrific villains, but some of them like Bane had very little similarity to the comic books. Not that I'm complaining; I like Nolanverse Bane at least as much as comic book Bane, maybe even more, but it's always good to see exactly the same awesome character on the screen and on paper. Especially someone with the pure awesomeness of Judge Dredd. I was kind of expecting this movie to have some cool action scenes, but have a weakish plot, but the quality was a lot higher than I was expecting. It also felt a lot longer than it actually was, since there was so much happening. In fact, I don't think I have any real complaints about it. Usually when I review movies and stuff, I try to come up with at least a couple criticisms for the sake of being a more credible and useful source, but right now I got nothing. Mega-City One was a little less futuristic and more realistic, but I have no problem with that. I think one of the few things that the old movie did relatively well was the lawgiver (sure, "double whammy" is a little ridiculous, but I thought it was kind of cool), but it was way awesomer in this version. The first time he pulls it out, his conversation with the perp is something like this:
"Put down the gun, hotshot"
"What?"
"I said hotshot."
*shoots perp in mouth with incendiary bullet, perp's head burns to a crisp*
I thought that was pretty cool. Now I really really want a lawgiver, Judge's helmet, and a lawmaster. Between a lawmaster and the Batpod, I'd say the batpod is probably the cooler bike, but I barely consider that a real motorcycle. So the lawmaster is on of the coolest actual motorcycles there are, and probably the one I would choose if a few were offered. Anyway, the movie itself is very true to the source material, has some extremely cool action scenes, and has a good plot. What's not to like?

Judge Dredd

I was going to wait until the new movie comes out to do a post on it, but I'm bored and can't think of anything else to write about, so here we are. For a long time, Judge Dredd was one of those characters that I thought: yeah, I guess he's kinda cool. Then I actually picked up one of his comic books. As it turns out, I now think he's one of the coolest comic book characters out there. From his lawgiver pistol to his dark and aloof personality that reminds me a little of Batman, he is just awesome. Overall, I didn't hate the Stallone movie; I might've even thought it was goodish if they had used that basic plot for a movie that wasn't supposed to be Judge Dredd. But it was. But it was. I thought they did a great job with the lawgiver, which is my favorite part of a Judge's arsenal, but WTD (what the drokk) were they thinking having him take his helmet off? I realise that very few actors want to star in a movie where you only ever see their mouth and chin, but still. Apparently though, Karl Urban does, and for that I am truly grateful. And while the new costume is far less comic accurate, that doesn't bother me one bit. After one look at him, I already just think: Grud have mercy on any perp who messes with this dude. I mean, look at the difference.

Urban's lack of a codpiece is already a step up. The other major thing is the voice. The old voice was fairly normal, except that when he says things like "I AM ... THE LAAAWWWWW!!! DROP ...... YOUR WEAPONS! ... THESE BLOCKS ... ARE UNDER ... ARREST!" with all those dramatic pauses, it sounds slightly dumb. Meanwhile, Urban's Judge Dredd voice sounds like Rorschach imitating Karl's normal voice doing a Batman impression. The epitome of what I'm talking about is in the way each of them says "I am the Law". Just watch these two clips and decide for yourself.