The Club

After spending a few minutes with The Club, it’s easy to label it as bland and derivative. However, The Club is like a fine wine that needs to be allowed to breathe before consumption. To dismiss it outright would be to miss the beauty that lies beneath the presentation: a game so finely crafted and tuned that it is quite unlike anything available on the market.

The Club merges not genres, but ideas and philosophies. It blends the old with the new. The Club has a gritty, raw design – something akin to Memento or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – yet the paper-thin premise has a sense of the ridiculous that hasn’t been seen since the days of Smash TV. The game makes use of every single button on the Sixaxis controller, yet it has the refined simplicity and focus that fuelled the motivations of 1980’s arcade rats. The Club is old principles updated for a modern age.

Naturally, this is going to lead to some disappointment, and The Club is certainly an acquired taste. Modern gamers have become accustomed to wrappings that The Club appears to have, but of which it is completely devoid.

There is no narrative to speak of outside of the premise: that an organisation filled with the rich and powerful and known only as The Club runs deathmatches Running Man style for entertainment, and as one of eight contestants, you are to compete and kill – or be killed. The characters themselves serve merely as ways to distinguish their different attributes and playing styles, and character development is nonexistent. Although the presentation might entice belief that there is some kind deep narrative that exposes the sinister underworld of the baby-eating rich, those expecting it are assured disappointment. The Club is only one step away from declaring: “Big money! Big prizes! I love it!”

Indeed, even taking in modern expectations of gameplay will lead to disappointment. The levels are intimate and intense, each a self-contained microcosm that exists as an individual challenge rather than part of a larger objective. Completing the game is merely a means to unlocking the various challenges rather than an end in itself; the objective here is to score and score big. The sentiments of Bizarre Creations are the same as Ecco the Dolphin was once asked: “How high in the sky can you fly?”

This simplicity flows over into the core mechanics of the gameplay. Each level requires players to execute a range of respawning enemies while completing various tasks, ranging from finding an exit to staying alive for a set amount of time. Yet these tasks themselves are merely a smokescreen for the real challenge and usually only serve as ways to make player evaluate their strategies. The real focus is on achieving a high score, and to do so players must do more than simply shoot; they must achieve long, unbroken strings of impressive manoeuvres.

It’s a similar mechanic to that seen in Bizarre Creations’ Project Gotham Racing series. Once an enemy is extinguished, the combo counter has an incremental increase. The combo count multiplies each score for an individual kill, meaning that higher combos lead to higher scores. The catch is that after a certain amount of time, the combo starts to decrease unless another kill is made, meaning that the key to high scores is to keep the carnage continuous. The trick, then, is to revisit each level until it is burned into memory and each enemy is killed in precisely the correct way at precisely the correct time. It is a game that demands practice.

The Club walks a tightrope that hovers above a pit of repetition, but manages to keep its balance by appealing to a competitive compulsion. The game offers a multiplayer mode, as apparently all games with guns must now feature one, but those that appreciate The Club will also appreciate the true value is found in the desire to have one more go, to do better. With a variety of levels and difficulties and online leaderboards that fuel the inner overachiever, the only reason to stop playing The Club is if a player’s skill has reached a plateau.

Ultimately, The Club offers an experience that many would have believed dead – or at least banished to cheap downloads. Like a powerful shiraz, it’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely a refreshing reminder that often mediocre gameplay is hidden behind convoluted narrative wrapping. The Club wears its heart proudly on its sleeve and makes no apologies for what it is: beautiful, finely crafted gameplay that grabs one by the throat and demands they play some more. High score junkies that are feeling left out in the cold by the current obsession with cinematic flair should purchase The Club immediately.

"Pure, unadulterated gameplay."

8.5 Great