Reviews// The Club

There is barely a handful of seconds in the game (or in the film, for that matter) where you are not shooting, or being shot at. This means that you need to keep an eye on the health meter. This is not the kind of game to give any warnings of diminishing health: no stumbling character nor flashing red screen - nothing.

One second you are shooting bad guys in the head, the next you are looking at yourself laying face down in a pool of your own blood. This is just like the kind of out-of-body experience para-psychological fruitcakes tell us accompanies a real death - that and heading towards a blue light, where your mum and your first pet are awaiting you. This gives you an ideal opportunity to study your character's clothes, which are surprisingly stylish in some cases.

The Club isn't just about running around killing people however. Some levels involve standing still and killing people who run around (and sometimes towards) you. On these "Siege" levels, you have to stay within a clearly delineated area of the level. If you move out of this area for more than a few seconds, an explosive that has been planted in your pretext, sorry... in your body will explode (because that's what explosives do, they explode) and you'll be spread around and about the place messily.

When I started playing The Club, I suffered quite badly from cognitive dissonance. I just couldn't get my head round the lack of the usual hallmarks of a first/third-person shooter. There are no story, no script, no wandering down corridors wondering if there are baddies or dogs with their flesh ripped off lurking around the next corner. The Club dispenses with these fripperies. You KNOW there will be baddies around the next corner.

In The Club, there are baddies around every corner. You won't have to negotiate with them or stand, your trigger finger becoming ever more itchy, as they explain their fiendish plot to you. All you need to worry about is how to shoot them in the head. As I said, at first I thought The Club was broken. A faulty idea. But the more I played... and played... and played, the less these things seemed to matter. The Club has cut away the chaff or milled it, or filtered it, or whatever it is one does to sort the wheat from the chaff (One can winnow it. Agricultural Ed). Leaving just the elements I love most about third-person shooters, wheaty, meaty ultra violence; mindless callous killing. And I love it.

If I love it so much, why has it scored "only" 89%. Well, the graphics are adequate, good even, but they aren't stunning. The sound too is utilitarian - it serves its purpose without making me "believe I am there". These things can, and may well be, improved in The Club 2. But right now, what we’ve got is an excellent game idea, well - but not astoundingly well - realised. This makes a refreshing change from all the games with no ideas that are stunningly realised.

SPOnG Score: 89%
The Club's pretext is a bit contrived. But, if you overlook that and concentrate on the gameplay, it's a game that delivers in Spades. It's also an excellent training game for pretty much every other third-person (or first-person) shooting game ever made. By dismissing the story altogether, and ramming each level chock-full of action, Bizarre Creations has dispensed with all that boring puzzling and exploring that third-person game developers often feel obliged to put in there.