Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd is a side-view action video game released for the Super NES, Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Gear and Game Boy originally released in 1995. The game is based on the 1995 film Judge Dredd, which was itself an adaptation of the Judge Dredd strip from 2000AD.^[1]

Gameplay – Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd Screenshot — **Judge Dredd** game allows players to arrest enemies instead of executing them.

The Judge Dredd game features run and gun gameplay with a variety of weapons. The player is given a choice to either execute criminals or arrest them.

Levels range from the major futuristic city known as Mega-City One, a prison in a post-nuclear wasteland, ruins and a showdown with the rogue Judge Rico Dredd.^[2]

Plot – Judge Dredd

In the 22nd century, everybody lives in the urban areas of the world.^[3] Police officers and lawyers have been abolished and only the Judges are in complete control of human society.^[3] One of them, Judge Dredd, must pursue the renegade Judge Rico and Mega-City’s most dangerous criminals. Eventually, Dredd defeats Rico and wins a final battle with the Dark Judges to rescue Mega-City.^[4]

Development – Judge Dredd

For seven of the game’s 12 levels, the backgrounds were created by digitizing sets from the movie; the remaining five levels use backgrounds based on the comic book.^[5]

Ports – Judge Dredd

A conversion of the game was in development for the Atari Jaguar CD after Atari Corporation and Acclaim announced their partnership in March 1995 that included plans to release three titles for the system, but Judge Dredd was later licensed to Atari Corp. months after the announcement of the partnership and was planned for a Q4 1995 release, but the port went unreleased for unknown reasons.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Reception – Judge Dredd

The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly criticized that the game’s bosses are overly difficult, but generally approved of Judge Dredd for its large levels and selection of weapons, with one of their reviewers remarking that “What Judge Dredd lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in playability.”

They were much more critical of the Genesis version, which they said suffers from inferior graphics, sound, and most importantly, control compared to the SNES version.^[12] Similarly, GamePro criticized the game’s lack of originality but praised the large levels, selection of weapons, and the ability to arrest enemies instead of killing them. They too gave the Genesis version a more negative review on account of inferior graphics and sounds.^[16]

Novel – Judge Dredd

Main article: Dredd Vs Death

Gordon Rennie wrote a Dredd vs. Death novelization, published by Black Flame, as a tie-in to the game (October 2003, ISBN 1-84416-061-0). The novel alters the storyline somewhat in that certain events which in the game happened to Dredd are given to other judges such as Judge Giant and Anderson. Galen DeMarco also plays a prominent role.

Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of 2000 AD (1977), which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine’s longest-running character, and in 1990 he got his own title, the Judge Dredd Megazine. He also appears in a number of film and video game adaptations.

Judge Dredd is a law enforcement and judicial officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a “street judge“, empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.