The Club (PS3)

The first rule of The Club is, you do not play The Club. The second rule is ... well, you get the idea.
3/14/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

Depressingly, the scoring system itself is actually pretty addictive. The more you play, the more you start thinking about how you could have done each stage better. Just nail a few quicker kills and a couple more skull shots, and often your score will increase exponentially. You almost want to take the time to get good at it ... almost. The problem is, the shooting itself isn't nearly interesting enough to keep its hooks in you. There's a decent variety of weaponry, and a sufficient level of challenge (eventually, anyway -- it takes a while to warm up), but there is so little style, so little punch, so little technique to the gameplay that eventually you start to feel like you're playing some gun-crazy version of Dynasty Warriors -- and that's not a good thing.

For one thing, your chosen psycho, regardless of which one it is, is exceptionally limited in what he can do. He can shoot any of his acquired guns, toss various grenades, crouch, melee attack, and roll. That's it. No cool special moves, no Max Payne-esque slo-mo craziness, no pizzazz whatsoever. You don't even have proper cover mechanics beyond the basic crouch, despite the fact that enemies seem pretty good at wall hugging, blind firing and other crafty maneuvers. Fortunately, they're so hell-bent on killing you that they don't rely on those moves very heavily, and most often just stand around shooting at you until they run out of ammo, or run straight at you while shooting until they run out of ammo, at which point they start running away from you. Even as the challenge level ramps up, your interest will continue to dwindle bit by bit until you realize that you're actually playing the 3-D equivalent of Hogan's Alley and give up on it.

Most of the above criticisms tie specifically into the game's single-player modes. The multiplayer is a bit different and slightly better. There is still a definitive lack of style permeating the online modes, but at least the predictability is gone when you engage other players. There are also a greater variety of modes online, including multiple free-for-all and team-based modes. Some of these modes are a little on the middling side, but others, such as the Hunted mode (where you become "it," like in a game of tag, by killing an opponent and try to stay alive for as long as possible) and Team Fox Hunt (which assigns a "fox" to each team who must be protected from enemy attacks) are actually inventive and relatively fun. Granted, none of these modes are much of a cut above the vast bulk of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or PC's many, many competent shooters, but hey, competency is at least something.

Incidentally, if you're still hell-bent on buying The Club and need to know which version to get, you won't find many differences between them. They all look roughly the same, which is to say technically proficient, but aesthetically boilerplate. The PC version is slightly cheaper than its console counterparts and also has the added bonus of mouse and keyboard controls, which are a bit more precise. On the flipside, the PC version's online mode requires you to have a Live account to play it. If you've already got Live, then no worries, but if you don't have the service, you'll need to hook it up to play.