Its classic design can't save its own overall mediocrity
The Club....really doesn't get any simpler than what you read and see on the back of the game case, a third person shooter which haves you easily taking down mass' upon mass' of dumb-founded AI nobodies with guns that sound like they shoot popcorn instead of bullets.
The real reason why I purchased such an un-appealing game was because, mainly, it was the best I could find at the price range I had carrying around at the time. Though for £18 I think it did live up to its value, though just, any penny higher and I probably would of seen it as day-light robbery.
Anyway onto its primary focus, the gameplay.
Now the gameplay is basically just a recycled version of many a 3rd person shooter though this time without a cover-mechanic, which these days is certaintly unique but still not prefered.
Playing through the tournament you choose a character from the selection of an intial 6 (eventually adding up to 8), but sadly even though for a game like this 8 may still be a nice amount of playable characters that would of obviously been furthered if there really was some difference between the roster. Sure they do all look very different with there nationalities (surprisingly no british playable characters, well of course that belongs to the creepy Club President with his phony posh accent...seriously if America had its way the whole UK would be filled with scheming posh twatss bent on world domination.) and dress sense, though the uniquiety ends there. They all claim to have there own strengths in the sense that someone might be able to take more damage while another might be a faster runner but when it comes down to it there all essentially the same and won't really require any different tactics when taking them down the pathways of the Club. So its mainly all down to your taste's of how you want to look when blasting popcorn through a whole battalion of guys (no girls?? The Club sexist much?).
There is around seven different game types though they all boil down to two, one has you running through a fairly linear battleground trying to rack up your score and keeping a look out for skull slates or time slates to either give a slight boost to your score multiplier or to add some extra time to the clock, while the other has you stuck in a convined area with the goal of trying to survive until the timer reachs zero, with you again trying to rack up your score and kill list while keeping a look out for the skull slates.
Throughout the tournament you will be traversing through some very varied and atmospheric looking enviroments which can really help to tone down the repetition, though sadly only slightly, they can range from an abandonded old English Manor to a run down old Prison. In a nutshell, and also a football stadium, thats basically the whole gameplay in and out, though there is a nice amount of weaponry that can help in suited situations such as the shotgun coming in handy for the survival missions, but they all seem to sound the same and even the Gatling Gun feels rather flat when unleaching its menacing amount of ammo through the battleground.
Onto to sound to which as I've stated before is a let down due to the weapons crappy sound effects, and besides the British president of The Club there isn't any dialoque between the main characters besides a few grunts and screams here and there, though the enemies do have there own lines and some appropriately fit such as them screaming ''Why won't you die?!?'' which is very true and maybe even a little tongue in cheek since while they die with around 1-4 shots of any weapon, you can seem to withstand a whole army full of crap and bullets before eventually succumbing to death.
The multiplayer does have some potential for some entertainment but that too was very dissapointing over the fact that they all have the players against each other in some mundane matchs. Such as maybe one team is cornered off and must stay alive as long as they can against the other team of players. Honestly I was hoping for maybe a co-operative survival mode against a massive amount of AI's, would of been much better at least for the split-screen mode.
Besides the tournament and possibly running through it all again with another character, when you've beaten the top scores (which is at least very hard to accomplish) there's not much to keep you coming back. The multplayer might work for some though it certaintly doesn't for me since the single player has you as a bullet resistanting tank, while in the multiplayer you die surprisingly quickly and can lead to frustration as there's no actual sign of you being shot. Before you know it your snipered without even noticing your health go down because you were too busy keeping a look out for that damn sniper.
All in all it is at least a very great looking game, espeically speaking for the enviroments, but of course this is next-gen so that 'is' to be expected. Sadly from what I've seen so far most games these days just seem to be trading in the gameplay for awesome looking graphics and the same applys for The Club.
Still does contain a few hours of fun if you can find them, since it is for an acquired taste, most definatley the old school of always trying to beat that highscore from the 80s generation of games.
The real reason why I purchased such an un-appealing game was because, mainly, it was the best I could find at the price range I had carrying around at the time. Though for £18 I think it did live up to its value, though just, any penny higher and I probably would of seen it as day-light robbery.
Anyway onto its primary focus, the gameplay.
Now the gameplay is basically just a recycled version of many a 3rd person shooter though this time without a cover-mechanic, which these days is certaintly unique but still not prefered.
Playing through the tournament you choose a character from the selection of an intial 6 (eventually adding up to 8), but sadly even though for a game like this 8 may still be a nice amount of playable characters that would of obviously been furthered if there really was some difference between the roster. Sure they do all look very different with there nationalities (surprisingly no british playable characters, well of course that belongs to the creepy Club President with his phony posh accent...seriously if America had its way the whole UK would be filled with scheming posh twatss bent on world domination.) and dress sense, though the uniquiety ends there. They all claim to have there own strengths in the sense that someone might be able to take more damage while another might be a faster runner but when it comes down to it there all essentially the same and won't really require any different tactics when taking them down the pathways of the Club. So its mainly all down to your taste's of how you want to look when blasting popcorn through a whole battalion of guys (no girls?? The Club sexist much?).
There is around seven different game types though they all boil down to two, one has you running through a fairly linear battleground trying to rack up your score and keeping a look out for skull slates or time slates to either give a slight boost to your score multiplier or to add some extra time to the clock, while the other has you stuck in a convined area with the goal of trying to survive until the timer reachs zero, with you again trying to rack up your score and kill list while keeping a look out for the skull slates.
Throughout the tournament you will be traversing through some very varied and atmospheric looking enviroments which can really help to tone down the repetition, though sadly only slightly, they can range from an abandonded old English Manor to a run down old Prison. In a nutshell, and also a football stadium, thats basically the whole gameplay in and out, though there is a nice amount of weaponry that can help in suited situations such as the shotgun coming in handy for the survival missions, but they all seem to sound the same and even the Gatling Gun feels rather flat when unleaching its menacing amount of ammo through the battleground.
Onto to sound to which as I've stated before is a let down due to the weapons crappy sound effects, and besides the British president of The Club there isn't any dialoque between the main characters besides a few grunts and screams here and there, though the enemies do have there own lines and some appropriately fit such as them screaming ''Why won't you die?!?'' which is very true and maybe even a little tongue in cheek since while they die with around 1-4 shots of any weapon, you can seem to withstand a whole army full of crap and bullets before eventually succumbing to death.
The multiplayer does have some potential for some entertainment but that too was very dissapointing over the fact that they all have the players against each other in some mundane matchs. Such as maybe one team is cornered off and must stay alive as long as they can against the other team of players. Honestly I was hoping for maybe a co-operative survival mode against a massive amount of AI's, would of been much better at least for the split-screen mode.
Besides the tournament and possibly running through it all again with another character, when you've beaten the top scores (which is at least very hard to accomplish) there's not much to keep you coming back. The multplayer might work for some though it certaintly doesn't for me since the single player has you as a bullet resistanting tank, while in the multiplayer you die surprisingly quickly and can lead to frustration as there's no actual sign of you being shot. Before you know it your snipered without even noticing your health go down because you were too busy keeping a look out for that damn sniper.
All in all it is at least a very great looking game, espeically speaking for the enviroments, but of course this is next-gen so that 'is' to be expected. Sadly from what I've seen so far most games these days just seem to be trading in the gameplay for awesome looking graphics and the same applys for The Club.
Still does contain a few hours of fun if you can find them, since it is for an acquired taste, most definatley the old school of always trying to beat that highscore from the 80s generation of games.