The Club
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6.7
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It takes a special kind of action game to make a real, lasting imprint on its players. A truly great shooter transcends the limits of mindless run-and-gun mayhem and makes people think, becoming something more in the process. The Club, the latest offering from Bizarre Creations and Sega, does none of these things.
Following a rather derivative format that seems to be a mix of arcade-style shooters and games like Dead or Alive, The Club aims for mediocrity and hits its mark, delivering a potentially endless supply of gunfights and combo sprees. It is this simple formula that fuels the entire game - The Club has no real storyline to speak of, only the vague outline of an organization called "The Club", whose function is to take the world's best fighters and pit them against hordes of foes ala Quake III: Arena in order to see who fares best. There are 8 different characters, each with different nationalities and combat abilities, but beyond one or two cutscenes, they aren't developed at all, and how they relate to one another or The Club is never explained.
The closest thing to a campaign in The Club is Tournament mode, which, while not following any kind of storyline, is unique in that each character must complete the game's 8 "levels" (or environments) in order to unlock them all. There are no missions, cutscenes or bosses to fight - just eight levels, each with six different modes of play, or rounds, that must be completed. The three general variations are a straight run through the level, where the goal is simply to accumulate a high score, survival mode, where the goal is to hold out for a certain amount of time, and time attack, where the goal is to complete one or more laps while still racking up a high score.
Scores are the foundation of The Club, and they function relatively simply. Kill an enemy, and you get whatever his point value is added to your score (combined with other factors, such as accuracy, shot placement, etc). Kill two enemies in a row, and your combo raises to 2, and the enemy's point value is doubled. There is a score for each round and each level as a whole - so in order to place anywhere on the scoreboard, combos are vital. Luckily, they're not that hard to maintain, since there are more enemies to be found in every round than there are in a Rambo film, as well as plenty of skulls on the wall that can be shot for points and achievements on the Xbox 360 version. After the tournament has been completed, custom "gunplay" lists can be played. The combat is fast, generic and furious, so the tournament shouldn't take more than a few hours to beat with any character, even on advanced difficulty levels. Replayability is key to what value The Club has.
Visually, The Club doesn't aim much higher than it does with its gameplay. With only eight levels, the variety is limited. There are a few nice environments, like a mansion that quickly descends from cleanliness and prestige to total ruin, but for the most part, the environments are dark, gritty and hemmed-in, a design that best suits the game's rapid-fire, gunshot-centric style. It certainly passes for next-gen, but The Club won't be challenging some of the more attractive titles to be released in the last few years.
As far as audio is concerned, The Club could have excelled, but instead just does alright. Since there's no voicework to speak of, aside from a single narrator and a bizarre Quake-like announcer - or any real music - the only sounds to be heard are gunshots and the screams of foes. Guns sounds relatively muted and dull compared to their real-world counterparts, as do a number of explosions and environmental effects. Then again, with the amount of sheer activity that goes on, life-like sounds would probably deafen most players. Still, while The Club sounds good enough for what it sets out to do, it ends up feeling like it could or should have done more.
After completing the tournament with one character, players can do it all again with seven other characters (two of whom have to be unlocked). Each character varies from the others by way of some minor physical attributes - speed, stamina, strength (the last, of course, is odd, since melee is practically useless). These differences will seem irrelevant to novice players - advanced players, however, will certainly need to take note of them if they want to maximize their scores, which seem to be the only real incentive for playing the game again after finishing the tournament (aside from achievements).
The multiplayer mode in The Club has both online and offline portions, the latter likely being the more appealing option to most players, as it allows for up to four people to play simultaneously - and that may be more people than they'll find playing the game online. Online play is functional, but has its moments of choppiness. Overall, the multiplayer doesn't stack up quite as well as the singleplayer mode does, and is unlikely to serve as a long-term draw for many players.
When all of its parts are considered as a whole, The Club adds up to a mediocre offering in a market full of far superior titles. Every aspect of the game's production suggests a desire on Sega's part to push an okay title out of the door that is neither above par nor significantly below it, but decidedly average. While its blend of straightforward shooting and a highly replayable, tournament-style format is somewhat unique, the gameplay itself isn't satisfying enough to hook many players, and, for most people - at least those who are aware of other titles on the market - it doesn't warrant a purchase.
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6.5