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The Club
Console
PlayStation 3
Publisher
Sega
Genre
Action
Developer
Bizarre Creations
Release Date
TBA
7
ESRB Rating
Not Rated
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Posted by:
Ryan Olsen
Reviews Director
REVIEW
The Club
Will you want a lifetime membership to The Club?
February 27, 2008 | 10:36 AM PST

Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
The Club is a dangerous game with shady characters entering deadly tournaments where only the winner stands tall (and alive). The gameplay focuses on scoring huge points and chaining kills to increase combo multipliers. Truth be told, you are only a 25 cent piece away from having a complete arcade shooting experience.

What's Hot
Looking for a game that's cheap with thrills and says, "To Hell" with fluff? The Club should satisfy you. The game seems like a cross of the movie Fight Club and the book The Most Dangerous Game and adds a twist to give the game a personality of its own. That personality is that of an over-exaggerated game with character stereotypes that boarder on cartoonish. You have your crooked cop, cagey gambler that bites off more than he can chew, ex-KGB and mutant freak.

The sparks ignite when you throw them all in an arena together. You lock and load your guns in some epic online matches. They are fast, furious and fun as the frags don't stop coming. The online matches are capped at 8 people but the levels are tailored perfectly for exactly that number.

There is something about The Club that makes you want to master it. The first few rounds, on normal difficulty, will aggravate you to no ends. With practice (it becomes a mission to get better) something will click and you'll be stacking multipliers left and right. Your will to get better and score more points only grows as you play more. It makes the action perfectly paced throughout the game. By planning or by accident, The Club will ramp up the pace because you will feel the need to get higher combo scores.

What's Not
The Club is a one-trick pony. It delivers bullet action constantly and the drive to increase your scores only grows in intensity. There is a point where it becomes too much to continue. The gameplay doesn't change enough for the game to retain the arcade freshness. Even with the game showing off some slick style, it is easy to tell the game The Club has taken the most influence from, Gears of War. The close, over-the-shoulder camera, shaky run-camera and copious amounts of blood are a dead giveaway. It is certainly not a bad thing to be compared to Gears but it would have been nice to see The Club fleshed out more.

Running through the single-player modes will provide valuable training but once you run through the modes, master the way to score you can forget about the single-player in favor of the multiplayer. You end up feeling like there isn't enough meat on the bones where you can sink your teeth (and time) into.

Final Word
The Club is a game you want to master but might find the lasting appeal is lacking. The multiplayer stands out as being the shining feature of the game but the single-player will be a love/hate relationship.
Visuals
Good use of the Unreal 3 engine.
7.0
Sound
Guns sound substantial, the limited voice acting is good.
7.0
Control
Tight controls help you score huge points.
8.0
Gameplay
A one-trick-pony but that trick is really cool.
7.0
Lasting Appeal
Online multiplayer is reason to keep playing but single-player might not be.
6.5
Verdict
The Club is a game you want to master but might find the lasting appeal is lacking. The multiplayer stands out as being the shining feature of the game but the single-player will be a love/hate relationship.
7.0
[not an average]
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February 27, 2008

February 27, 2008

February 27, 2008

February 27, 2008

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