The Club

In the club, you play as one of several sociopathic killers who have been invited to take part in a one of a kind venture. The premise is to see who is the most ruthless, the best aim and the all around most muderin' fool up in this joint. You do this by running through a series of challenges that "the Club" has set up for you. In each challenge the idea is to kill as many of the faceless thugs the Club seems to breed and complete an additional set of tasks. If you like your shooters really violent and really fast paced, then this just may be the title you have been hoping for.
 
Apparantly the "Club" is a wealthy conglomerate of sophisticated elitists, who for whatever perverted reason, like to see who the fastest trigger is. We know this because there is a character called "the Secretary" and he has a very elegant way of speaking and understands the finances of the Club because he describes each new area as if it were an acquisition of rare art. The Club, apparently, likes to buy up dilapidated prisons and factories so that the contestants not only have to deal with the hundreds of walking targets, but the dark and dangerous looking locations as well. Not that there are traps in these places (other then the constant ambushes) but sometimes they are so dark and object filled, that you can lose your bearing on where to go. This of course makes you feel silly since there are arrows all over the place telling you where to go. Regardless, there is much to do and see when running through these crazy environments.

 
"The name's Seager, not Mike Seaver, do I look like I would watch Growing Pains?"  

Now each level of the game is a tournament onto itself. There are several levels in the tournament and each level has you doing a specific sort of gameplay. Now like I said, you pretty much just shoot your way through these challenges, but there are some different rules in each venue. Some parts of the tournament require that you run through the level and try to make it to the finish line. There is no timer, just whoever has the highest score wins the round. Now at this point understand that the single player tournament has you playing for rank against seven other combatants. And depending on how well you do in each portion of the tournament you are awarded points which go towards your overall score for the tourney. At the end of the tournament, the top three positions all get a Gold, Silver or Bronze bullet. Now the scores all depend on how well you you do in your killing. If you hit headshots, they are worth more, long range and trickier shots all score more points as well, simple shots don't. But what makes things even more interesting is that there is a counter that counts down after each kill, by not letting the counter run out, you keep adding more points exponentially as you kill. So killing 24 baddies and never letting the counter gauge run out (and then start over after your next kill) can mean massive amounts of points as opposed to killing 24 baddies slowly and not "combo-ing" them. Add to this these clever little skull signs that are spread throughout the levels which ratchet your scoring up even higher (provided you don't let your counter run out). Using these kill signs and keeping your kill combo going is the difference between scoring 112,987 points as opposed to 3,297,740 points. I kid you not, utilizing these combos effectively can create massive scoring opportunities.
 
Next, some levels are timed, and you must run the gauntlet by shooting bad guys and clock signs to add time to your decreasing counter. If you fail to reach the end of the course, you will explode since the Club placed non-explosives throughout your body. Again, scoring is based on how well you shot through everyone, how much health you had when you finished and the percentage of hits you made when firing (this is true through every level and tourney). Next, is a sort of defend type level where you must stay in a predefined area for a fixed amount of time, and fight off the hordes of attackers that are bum rushing you. There are chalk marks and cones indicating spots you shouldn't pass, and if you do, you only have five seconds to get back within the perimeter or you'll blow up. Now this is a clever device because often there is health or guns or ammo just outside these marks and you must make a dash for it and get back before you explode all while killing enemies and dodging weapons fire.

 

"Dude! I have all your albums!"

And then finally there is another timed style race but you must complete laps throughout the course and still shoot everything in sight and avoid being blown up. What's cool about this mode is that the enemies aren't going to be in the same place each time. During the first lap there may be a guy behind a half wall when you round the corner, when you come through that corner again, there may be three guys, or one but now in a different place. The point is, that when you move, the A.I. moves with you, including chasing after you from behind if you failed to kill them in a previous area.
 
Fortunately, you do have a couple of moves you can do to help take care of problems like that. By hitting the "Y" button, your character will quickly spin around and you can take care of the nasty little fellow who was shooting you in the back. You can also perform a roll move that helps you dodge gunfire and take cover. Killing a bad guy immediately following one of these moves will also increase your kill point score so unless you don't like John Woo movies, this is one you should pass on.
 
Now initially you can choose from six of the eight characters, like any good game you must unlock the other two by completing the game. Now each character has a different set of skill sets. The game doesn't over do it by any means and you certainly can't bump up any of these abilities, so what you get in the beginning is what you get at the end. However, and I say this given the tempo of the game (in other words, in my humble opinion), it pays to have characters that are quicker, as opposed to stronger. Why? Because speed directly effects how well you move and how fast you reload, both are essential to completing this game with all of your fingers and toes. Yes, the bigger slower guys in the game can take more damage, but the game is clearly designed like a sprint and not a marathon. And in fact, after playing for several rounds, I find I have to take a break because of the non-stop blistering pace. So in all actuality it pays to try out the characters in advance to get a good feel for the one that works best for you. In addition, the game is almost like a classic fighting game in the sense that as you beat the game, there is a cinematic showing what happens to the character you had initially chosen.
 

"MLB pitchers, realizing steroids are being cracked down on, come up with another way to strike out hitters."
 

With any game in this vein, you can expect pretty decent graphics, The Club, does not disappoint. All the levels are down and dirty complete with garbage strewn all over, vehicles parked in the way, sand bagged machine gun nests, graffiti on the walls, weapons, ammo and health laying all over the place and many, many bad guys. The screen never bogs down either, this is one of those games where everything would just fall apart if it did even for a moment, there is simply too much happening and it all comes at you nice and smooth. Not that there isn't some flaws, I found that several times there are places so dark you can't see the staircase, or the villain standing there trying to shoot you, and that can really mess you up especially if we are talking about one of the timed levels. Targeting is actually pretty accurate, your accuracy drops as you are running around and increases when you stop. What's also cool, is that the game almost has a "roadie" run feel to it when you are moving around, similar to Gears of War. Not the same, but similar.
 
The sound isn't too bad, the Secretary speaks in a very pompous and superior voice and makes you want to put a couple slugs in him if you had the chance. There is quite a bit of swearing done by the bad guys running around the levels, so make sure the young ones are out of the room or you may be asked what some words mean. The gunfire is loud and there is a lot of it. The whole game explodes out of my surround setup and rivals many shoot out scenes of major action flicks.
 
Since the game hadn't been released yet, I could not find anyone online to play with, so I was forced to split screen the game against my wife. Not my favorite way of playing in multiplayer environments, but I couldn't help but really get a kick out of the game's multiplayer modes. I pretty much whipped her into churned butter so she went upstairs to lick her wounds and I was forced to go back to the single player mode. I am really excited about the games online capability and while I did try and fail, I did discover that you can host a game and tweak it to your liking.  

 

"Ah, the seventh circle of Hades, a fitting place that we end up here."
 

Now being this is a game where the body count can really rack up, there are lots and lots of guns, handguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, machineguns, all have a different power when hitting bad guys so toggling through your weapons is paramount given the situation. Shotguns don't work too well when shooting snipers on the roof and rocket launchers don't work well in tight cramped places. So there is some thinking to be done in this title, just don't dwell on it too long.

Gameplay: 8.0
Fast and furious, the targeting is actually pretty well designed for this title, not always perfectly accurate, but when you get in the mix, the game actually helps you move from person to person as you mow through them. Not automatically, but slightly in your favor to help with the challenge. Your trigger finger will get a workout and pulling off cool moves makes any wannabe action auteur jealous.
 
Graphics: 8.4
There is lots of blood flying and everything looks the way it should. It's too bad you can't really stop and look around and appreciate everything, but for what it is worth, the character models and the crazy levels look great.
 
Sound: 8.0
Explosions, gunfire, swearing, what more could you ask for in a videogame version of most John Woo movies.
 
Difficulty: Hard
Passing each tournament is not that difficult, you get five tries per challenge, but finishing in the top three and ultimately winning the tournament is really difficult.
 
Concept: 7.8
It's so simple it should have been made years ago, this is literally a fighting game with guns and the plot of most Steven Segal movies (paper thin).
 
Multiplayer: ?
It's difficult to score the multiplayer portion since no one is online with the game yet and it would be unfair to base the score solely on the five minutes my wife spent trying to play against me split screen.
 
Overall: 8.2
I think this is a really fun, and simple minded game. Nothing like a Bioshock in terms of thinking and plot, but more like a 3rd person shooter that's got an arcade feel to it.