Bizarre Creations, best known for their highly acclaimed Project Gotham Racing series has decided to branch off in another direction and create a run n’ gun arcade style third person shooter. The Club involves some quick thinking, quick button flicking and quick trigger pulling. It’s a step in a very unique direction, so let’s see if Bizarres’ attempt at a shooter with a twist is a success.

The Club is the newest release from Bizarre Creations, and while keeping the arcade feel seen in the Project Gotham Racing series, they made a third person shooter. There is no plot or specific character, but there’s a large variety of weapons and bad guys. What is the club you might ask? Is it some type of dance hall where all the young kids go; no, it’s a secret organization that very few people around the world know about. The main goal of this organization is to recruit outsiders into the club, and the club is an underground bloodsport where the only goal is to kill or be killed. To do this you’re put into a linear maze style scenario and you have to get through by shooting anyone who gets in your way or sacrificing a kill to save some time in time attack. The outsiders were mostly forced to join the club with the exception of Seager, who happens to be the Canadian character and the one I used the most.

The interesting thing about The Club is that it’s not like your conventional shooter. You have to almost sprint through each stage. Some stages involve a timer where you have to get to the finish line before time runs out (Run The Gauntlet), and in some cases the timer counts down while you collect time clocks and get time bonuses for killing enemies as you try to complete continuous laps around the stage before time runs out (Time Attack). If there is no time clock you’re either going from start to finish trying to rack up as many kill points as possible (Sprint), or your holding you ground against waves of enemies trying to over run your position (Siege and Survivor). But to make this as much as an arcade game as possible you have to have a score. With each enemy killed you get a score and a score multiplier starts. As you get more and more kills your multiplier goes up and up, but don’t take too long to get your next kill or else the multiplier starts to diminish.

The game starts you off with two game mode options, tournament and multiplayer. As you progress through tournament two more game modes are unlocked, single event and gunplay. Tournament is exactly as it sounds, you’re put through each location and your goal is to survive and beat the other contestants’ high scores. Each battle location is unique in its own way and each place has a cover. For example the first location is an abandoned steel plant in Germany presented as a Hollywood film set, sounds pretty convincing. Within each location there are several game types that you are awarded points based on your ranking at the end of the stage. As long as you come out on top by the end of all game types in each location you’ll have no problem being the champ of The Club.

After each stage in The Club is completed it’s unlocked in both Single Event and Gunplay. Single Event let’s you return to any specific event in tournament so you can either practice or try to get a new high score. Gunplay is a neat feature; it allows you to create a play list of events in the order you want. Also you can select the guns available for use, so if you want to do a handguns only scenario, go for it. Multiplayer uses some of the same game modes as single, but also has some different ones along with co-op modes.

Bizarre creations had an interesting idea adding in a score and score multiplier, which makes you run through the levels a little quicker. The graphics and sound both have the arcade style feel to them, which also adds to the effect of the game. The negatives to this game would have to be, initially it’s hard to get used to the aiming with the touchy controls. Also at times you have to run through levels so quick that you may miss several enemies along the way. If you plan on playing tournament mode on the easiest difficulty don’t expect to spend more than two hours completing it. The game does have a good replay value so even if you beat it quickly you can still go back and try to beat that score again and again.

The Graphics in the club are impressive but not perfect. But then again it is an arcade game. When you shoot at enemies don’t expect limbs to fly off but do expect some blood dust and blood to hit the wall. But at the speed you have to run through the game at there isn’t much time to look at everything. The surroundings in each level are easy on the eyes without many harsh edges or colors, and if the game is played on an HDTV with HDMI cables it’s bound to look good. The movement of the characters and AI is clean and well done. Also the bullets can ricochet and you see it so watch out and be sure not to shoot yourself. I did notice a few glitches from the occasional bad guy coming at me through a wall and the explosions aren’t anything too impressive.

As for the sound in The Club, well as I’ve said many times it’s an arcade game, but if what they were trying to achieve is an arcade feel by giving the game the appropriate sounds and graphics they succeeded. Each gun had its own unique shot or blast sound, so it is satisfying when you run at someone with your twelve gauge firing a few rounds into them. If you listen closely the enemies they can say some funny comments at times, “Why don’t you shoot someone else!” is one of my favorites.

The Club is filled with mojo, who doesn’t want lots of guns, lots of bad guys to shoot and excellent rag doll effects to go along with all this. If you’re looking for a fun, super fast paced shooter this game is for you, but if you’re looking for something with a little more depth then maybe consider this a rental. Either way I would suggest renting this game first as it is hit or miss and doesn’t take long to complete.

Gameplay: 7, Graphics:8, Sound:8, Innovation: 8, Mojo:10 Final: 8.2 / 10