Mitchell Dyer

At first glance, Bizarre Creation’s The Club comes off as another over-the-shoulder third person shooter. What it presents, however, is something much more than your typical shooter.

It’s a quarter-eatin’ arcade cabinet in disc form, putting standard story aside for sport and scoring in a brutal underground bloodsport hosted by a disembodied Englishman’s voice. The shallow story reflects the depth of the single player as well, but despite its crippling limitations, The Club still manages to be a an addictive action title that’s aimed for those looking for something fresh.

The primary goal of The Club is to earn points. In this Running Man/Fight Club mash-up, players choose one of eight characters as they blast their way through eight environments and a bevy of similar events. Busting caps in the asses of legions of brainless baddies, you’ll string together combo streaks with a variety of weapons that audibly resemble a Nerf gun as you compete in score-centric beat-the-clock/find-the-exit/don’t-get-killed missions that can be completed in five minutes or less.

This 90’s era design choice makes for excellent hop-in-hop-out gameplay, but it’s also easy to play for hours on end. The tight shooting mechanics and high pressure situations make for some seriously intense firefights, and you’ll find yourself loading them up repeatedly trying to climb the ranks of the online leaderboards. If you’re planning on unlocking the few available characters and levels you’ll be taking part in a series of eight tournaments, each with five or more of the aforementioned events.

The challenge offered in the solo missions is fantastic, even if the numbskulls like to run in to your line of fire. Enemy accuracy reflects that of a skilled human, of which there are many in the multiplayer. The game modes take form in one vs. all, to your basic capture-the-base and deathmatch variants, as well as your atypical Team Siege – defend the base – and Score Match where you’ll be banking big points for victory. Levels are big and often confusing and death is more than common, so The Club’s online bits will take a bit of learning.

The Club has a lot going for it. It’s crazy, concentrated fun. Its visuals might not live up to the expected standards of most modern titles (they’re good, just not outstanding) but it’s not the focus – the gameplay is. The arcadey nature of it had us gripped for hours on end, just trying to beat the next guy on the list. It’s limited, absolutely – eight characters, eight levels, no customization or reward and no explanation for each “why”,”who” and “how” question – and the slow movement of the characters will have twitch players going absolutely insane. But for the rest of us, The Club is a responsive, addictive shooter that acts as a pure adrenaline injection.