The Club is a video game by Bizarre Creations and is published by Sega. The game mixes elements from action shooters with combo and point based combat. During the campaign, time is a factor. The story of the game centres around The Club, a shadowy underground blood-sport controlled by faceless, wealthy and influential elite who place their bets on who will survive the gladiatorial style combat.
Characters[]
The Club has a roster of eight playable characters, each of which have different attributes for speed, strength, and stamina.
The roster includes:
Dragov: A Russian convict who is rescued by The Club after attempting an escape across a Siberian tundra. He is the strongest of the competitors, but also the slowest.
Renwick: A former New York detective, who lost his job after repeated attempts to locate The Club, and continued the search on his own. He is fairly well balanced, with particular attention to speed.
Finn: A gambler whose debts landed him in trouble with the mob, and resulted in his Club membership. He is also well balanced, but with a little extra emphasis on stamina.
Seager: A Canadian extreme sports junkie, who joins The Club in search of that next high. He sacrifices strength for above average speed and stamina.
Kuro: A Japanese double agent posing as a Triad Society assassin. Kuro is among the fastest competitors in The Club.
Killen: An Australian man who survived through The Club once, only to be forced back when his daughter's life is threatened. Killen is well balanced, with an extra bump to strength.
Adjo: An African giant who seeks to redeem his violent past, but is ultimately forced to participate in the tournament. Adjo is also one of the strongest competitors in The Club.
Nemo: A psychopathic Englishman who only lives to kill. Nemo is extremely fast and quite strong, but has very low stamina.
Multiplayer[]
The game includes over nine multiplayer modes, with online leaderboards to compare scores. Online games can feature up to 7 real-time opponents on-line or battle off-line in 4-player split-screen mode. The following modes were released by Sega of America on January 17, 2008:
- Kill Match: This is a tried and tested death-match mode. The player with the most kills at the end of the game is the winner.
- Score Match: This is a points based death match where players rack up points for kills using the same scoring mechanism which is used in the single player game. As with the single player game, the key to big scores is to combo.
- Hunted Killer: When the game begins the first player to make a kill becomes the Hunted. While hunted, a player’s score ticks up constantly. Only one player can be the hunted, and if a Hunter player manages to kill the hunted, the hunted status will pass over to the killer. Becoming the hunted and surviving for as long as possible is the only way to score. The hunters are equipped with radar which shows where the hunted player is all the time. The hunted player does not have a scanner so he must keep on his toes to avoid his pursuers.
- Team Kill Match: This is a regular team kill match. The team who scores the highest by killing their opponents will win.
- Team Capture: in this game mode, both teams have a base objective. The aim of the game mode is to capture the enemies’ base objective while defending your own. Bases are captured by standing on them and holding for 30 seconds. The team who manages to fully capture the enemy team’s objective or the team with the most capture time when the game timer runs out is the winner.
- Team Siege: This game mode is inspired by the single player “Siege” game mode. In Team Siege teams are assigned the role of either attack or defense. Defending players have only one life whereas attacking players re-spawn when killed. The game plays out and the attackers must kill all of the defending players as quickly as possible. The teams then swap roles so the attackers become defenders and the defenders attackers. To win this round teams must survive for longer in defense than the attackers did.
- Team Skull Shot: The aim of this game mode is to destroy all five of the enemy team’s skull shot targets while defending your own.
Development[]
The title was originally supposed to be released for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in mid-2007 until it was delayed for unspecified reasons in early September 2007. The title was officially released globally on February 8, 2008.[2] The demo was added on the Playstation Network in the EU region on the 27th December 2007, Xbox Live on the 23rd of January 2008, and on the NA Playstation Network on the January 24, 2008.
Composer Richard Jacques wrote the score for the game, while Jesper Kyd scored the main theme.
Gameplay[]
Kane Ikin from Alchemy SBS Radio gave The Club 5 out of 5 saying "...The Club is a good little game, it's great, it wont win game of the year anytime soon, but it's fun and it does retain some of the arcade flair of high scores that games miss these days... I hope it sells well enough to warrant a sequel because if they fixed a few of the little annoyances it could be amazing..