Xbox 360 Review: The Club

by Adam Montgomery on February 8, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Tight, controlled movement is at the heart of Bizarre Creation’s work. They produce score-chasing games that entice players with addictive self-improvement challenges. When driving, you must brake and turn perfectly. When shooting, you must move and attack flawlessly.

It works, of course, especially when tied into online multiplayer and competition. Project Gotham’s ranking boards are sought after in hours of practice by millions of players. Geometry Wars was hailed as the greatest Xbox game of its early stages – an impressive achievement for a tiny Arcade game.

But what else can they do? Can they take their brand of play to new frontiers, to new genres? The developers sought to find out with The Club.

Its experimental nature roused interest in the product early. People looked twice when hearing that Bizarre weren’t working on a driving game. Playing the game, it feels a speculative effort – a test of both the developers and the audience.

So much of the game is described by its genre: third-person shooter. You run and shoot – it’s a bare-bones approach that will engage some as much as it repels others. Deciding which group you fall into will depend on if you yearn for a simpler style seen a decade a go, or you love today’s elaborate approach to videogame design.

To make things interesting, you get score multipliers. Kill in a big sequence and you get a big score – even bigger if you manage to kill with “style”, getting headshots or killing several goons with one grenade.

There’s no issue to be taken with the controls, except for the intended simplicity of it all. Shooting is accurate and your character’s responses are fast – everything you’d expect for a game which demands such perfection from you.

Killing is justified by a light story. The Club itself is a shady, powerful promoter of death matches intended to entertain the world’s elite. Your chosen character (one of 8) has either chosen to compete or is forced to fight.

Its narrative is structured in similar manner to beat-em-ups – your character’s motivation is set up before the game and then capped with a conclusion after you’ve won. It’s all a weak justification for some shooting-related challenges, with the stories being stock tales already seen in gaming.

Multiplayer competition is based upon a leaderboard. Players must spend hours working away until they achieve a high score that ranks highly. If this sounds a turn-off then you already know how you feel about the game. Alternatively, there’s some rather more traditional deathmatch competition, but this feels rather dull without the score-chasing element seen in solo play.

The game’s love of dirty, gritty environments means the eyes won’t be impressed by what’s here. It’s all painted with an uninspiring gloom which lacks any character. It’s no as love or hate as the gameplay itself, but nobody will be impressed by what’s on display.

If you stick to the easiest difficulty level on your first play you will easily overcome the opposition – it’s devoid of challenge. However, stepping up to the next setting results in a much harsher test that many will find difficult. This renders the whole game rather unapproachable, with some serious work needed to achieve any satisfaction. Possibly this was the intention, but the execution could have been improved to make this less frustrating initially.

The Club is a staunchly simplistic and focused challenge. If you’re crying out for a narrow-minded skill test then you will really enjoy this game — it contains a near-caveman charm about its gameplay (even if its visual design is charmless). It’s everything an expectant fan would want it to be, but offers nothing for those seeking an elaborate, nuanced adventure.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.