The Club (Xbox 360)

The Club is a third person shooter, survival game. The Club itself, is ran by The Secretary, wealthy people place bets on the competitors on whether they will survive their visit. The 'gladiators' aren't volunteering to be combatants at The Club, they're fighting for their survival.

There are eight playable characters, two are unlocked through gameplay. Each character had their own back story and ending cinematic. My favourite was Finn, a gambling addict who clearly has a lot of debts to pay, as he's getting beating up in his opening cinematic. Each character has their own stats too, there health, speed etc. so you're best playing around and see who fits you best.

There are eight tournaments in total and each takes you across the world. Each level is really well designed, if I wasn't always timed in the events, I'd have explored and taken the chance to look around. You're taken to some great places to kill some dudes, prisons, abandoned ocean liners, bunkers, manors amongst others.

There are six modes throughout the game. Most are timed, but one or two are more relaxed. There's a survival mode, get to the exit as quick as possible, running laps of the map and killing for extra time and more. You can also pick which map and mode you'd like to play outside of the tournaments. The scoring system is fun, and it's really addictive trying to climb up the leaderboards. Unfortunately the multiplayer is dead, not surprising since the game is nine years old. I would've loved to have had some fun on the multiplayer, I think it could've been addicting.

The gameplay is really good, the running and gunning is very fun. People actually died when you shot them, none of this bullet sponging bullshit, if you shot a guy in the head, don't worry about him anymore. If you got pretty good at the shooting, you could drop everyone with one headshot. You have melee and grenades too, but I didn't use them much. There are hidden skulls that add to your score if you shoot them, but when you get to the finish line, you have to crash through the barricades to end the level.

The premise is simple, the gameplay is excellent and the characters are cool. When I looked up this game, I was surprised to see it had lots of 7/8s, but when I thought about it, it kinda made sense. All that was missing for me was the fun looking multiplayer, obviously it didn't get to gain any points from me for that. It's pretty addicting and plays great, but arcade style games have their limits for me and I can't play them forever, I'm a story guy, and there isn't much of one here.

I enjoyed my time with The Club, but I don't think I'll be renewing my membership.

6.9/10