As soon as you start 10ton game’s Jydge, it’s clear that this a Judge Dredd game without the license, but also tweaking things enough to where they can avoid copyright infringement. Judge Dredd has not have a solid video game adaptation (or even movie adaptation in my opinion), so can Jydge be the definitive Judge Dredd experience?
The similarities between the two carries on into the plot, which tells about a future society now at the hands of this new police force called the Jydges who are purposed for reducing criminal activity among national cities by taking matters into their own hands.
Depending on how you treat the civilians in each mission will follow you into the next act, where the news will report on civilian’s support or concerns of your “Jydging”, leading into multiple endings for this game.
It’s not a character-driven story, but Jydge shows an intriguing si-fi world inspired by Judge Dredd and even Bladerunner, with the different districts and how these people live their lives in this future. So, you do feel curious as to what the citizens think about you, if you are making a change or making things worse.
The core gameplay is a top-down twin-stick shooter, where each mission has a main objective and two side quests, all in one block filled with criminal activity. They might be holding hostages, robbing banks and facilities or trying to flee charges by hosting nightclub parties.
If someone committed a crime, you are there to give them a death sentence. While that is said, you could very well kill or let the criminals kill innocent civilians in the mission, thus creating the moral system. Thankfully, I never found the A.I. running into my bullets and it’s not all black-and-white regarding the hostage situation. Jydge takes twin-stick through a more tactical approach than others in the genre.
While there is plenty of destructive madness in certain levels, a lot of it also happens to tailor with play style. After the opening level, you start out with a handful of perks for your Jydge and your gun, including what projectiles that gun will fire and what is your limited special weapon.
Purchasing more of these modifications cost in-game currency that you get from murdering baddies, opening containers and completing your main/side objectives. What you’ll notice is that these perks do much more than statistical altering. The perk system pretty much changes the gameplay around depending on what you put on your character.
I was surprised to be playing one level like a straight-forward action game with destructive environments to a Metro series-inspired stealth mission, where I had to manipulate myself with darkness. so I may sneak around in a hostile area. Later on, I received a perk where I can turn grunts into an army of allies by just smacking them, almost creating a Pikman-type scenario.
The possibilities go beyond what I’ve just said, not to mention the perk that allows you to blast enemies with say a plasma shotgun, and no damage is inflicted on the civilian that might otherwise be accidently caught in the crossfire. This game welcomes and enforces experimentation as you can only carry a small number of perks with you at a time.
In order to progress onto the main stage, you are pushed to complete more side objectives to gain enough medals for the next chapter. While you don’t necessarily need all (unless you wish to 100% the game) in order to get through the campaign, levels do get more complex and tougher as you go, yet still have to meet the requirements in order for completion. New perks are given to you by the number of medals you’ve earned as well.
I can totally understand some not loving the difficulty level or requiring you to collect enough medals in order to move onto the next stage (though, it’s not Cuphead or Dark Souls kind of hard).
Myself found all this to be minor, as I had so much fun playing the crud out of this game. Everything about Jydge is at the top of its game in terms of top-down shooting gameplay, how your choice of perk setup drastically affects the game, the snazzy techno music, the list is ginormous!
Now, you can get Jydge on PS4, PC & XBOX ONE, but playing this imaginative shooter on Switch is addictive to take with you wherever as much as its awesome to experience, using your flat screen TV. Regardless of what platform you own, Jygde is an epic ride and the best Judge Dredd adaptation you’ll ever buy!
Pond's Press 