Product Description

The Club, created by critically acclaimed developer Bizarre Creations, is a new breed of third-person shooter, combining fast-paced run and gun gameplay, destructive environments, and lethal weapons. You will fight to survive in a shadowy underground blood-sport controlled by a faceless, obscenely wealthy and influential elite who place their bets on who will survive as the blood-bath ensues before them. Take control of up to eight uniquely trained killers motivated by greed, driven by pure insane bloodlust, and hell bent on earning respect on a global level.

• Rise Through the Ranks of The Club. As one of eight fighters, blast your way through five single player game modes including: Sprint, Time Attack, Survivor, Siege, and Run the Gauntlet.
• Earn Respect Online. Shoot your way to the top of the leader boards in over nine cut-throat multiplayer modes. You will face-off with 15 real-time opponents online or battle with your friends offline in 4-player split-screen action modes.
• "The Club is Global. Battle in eight unique real-world locations from around the globe, including war-torn cities, abandoned factories, steel mills and many more.
• Extreme Gun Battles in Hazardous Environments. A motion blur camera system intensifies the adrenaline rush in both open range and close quarter firefights. Destroy and manipulate objects in the environment to your advantage.
• Build up the highest score. A unique score-based accumulation system creates even more competition among players; the faster, more efficient and accurate that you are, the more points you will earn to unlock weapons, characters and maps.
  
  

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3910 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2008-02-08
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Dimensions: 6.69" h x .39" w x 5.51" l, .27 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

SEGA and Bizarre Creations, the developer behind the critically acclaimed racing series, Project Gotham Racing and arcade smash hit Geometry Wars, deliver a whole new breed of third-person shooter known as The Clubâ„¢.

Join a misfit cast of killers forced to fight for their lives in an underground blood-sport controlled by faceless, obscenely wealthy and influential elite. Battling in abandoned locations spread across the globe these modern day gladiators with guns seek victory for a number of reasons - some for wealth, some because they have no choice and some to satisfy their insane bloodlust. No matter the reason the only thing that guarantees survival is their skill with a gun.

Customer Reviews

Misunderstood Genius
What a bold game. It's quite unlike any other shooter and given the score based nature of the game I can see why some people reference Project Gotham Racing.

It's not Call of Duty 4, but very few games are. The Club is a totally unique experience - massive replayability due to the scoring mechanic and brilliant multiplayer. A true test of skill so I can see why some folks won't get it but I did and I love it.

A Proud Member of The Club
The Club: either you get it or you don't. The Club is all about speed and accuracy, rhythm and repetition. There's no story. There's no cutscenes. The game is about a corrupt organization of rich men who organize an underground competition to see how long you can survive. You learn this in the tutorial and a 2 minutes intro video for all the characters at the start of the game. You have eight contestants to play as. Their differences are basically down to speed and damage. While some of them are faster but take lots of damage, the others are stronger but slower. All the characters are stylish if a bit cliché. There's the strong Siberian dude, the tough cop trying to take down The Club, the agile Japanese, the African guy with tribe markings on his face or the radical sports freak. There's not much difference playing as one or the other, it's pretty much about your favourite character and if you want speed or stamina. They're all charismatic and cool.
The whole objective of the game is to rack up as much deaths as possible. If you spend too much time without killing someone, your combo lowers. Anytime you kill someone the score is multiplied by whatever your combo is at the time, so you need to kill as fast as you can. You have to know the levels and where the bad guys appear. They're always at the same places so you can memorize the pattern and choose the order of killing for getting the biggest combo you can.
There are 8 locations where you play tournaments. Venice, a steel mill, a mansion and even the middle of a war. The graphics are average but there's a good level of detail in the levels. The music is perfect for the fast paced action.
There's never a dull moment in The Club. There's no cover system because that would go against the objective of the game. You're always running, trying to keep your combo from going down, looking for a guy to kill. The game is not difficult but can be challenging. The AI is nothing extraordinary but there are a lot of enemies and things get very intense. There are various game modes. In Survivor you have to survive a set amount of time in a closed location, being attacked from all sides. In Run The Gauntlet you have to reach the end of the level before time runs out and in Time Trial you gain time as you kill enemies to do a number of laps around the level. If time runs out, you die. In Siege, you're in a confined area, shooting from long range at the enemies.
The online multiplayer also has a good amount of modes but all people play is kill match or team kill match. These are the usual modes everyone knows from every multiplayer game. In The Club you start with a weapon which is usually bad and have to find a more powerful weapon in the level. What happens is that the players that know the maps better always get the better weapons and dominate play which can sometimes be very frustrating. Still, it can be fun.
The Club is an old school game. There's no story progression, no plot, its just shooting. If that's your style, you will love it. If you're looking for CoD4 or Halo, look elsewhere. This is a simple, addictive game. You have numerous leaderboards and you'll soon be playing the level just one more time to climb a few more spots, beat your record, get that perfect combo. In terms of longevity, it never ends. It's not an innovating game. Its gameplay is repetitive and over time can become tedious but it's also a lot of fun.
I'm happy to be a member of The Club.

Ruined by unfinished online component.
The main single player game will be allot of fun if you like to hone your arcade skills with multiple plays through the same level. I didn't enjoy it that much but I really bought The Club for it's online multiplayer.

Unfortunately the lack of a friend list or any way to lock hosted games to specified users means that there's no way for me to play on a server with friends. Every online session is with a random collection of players. This is fun for a while but it quickly becomes boring especially as there is also no voice support online so there's no way of working out tactics with your ad-hoc team as you play.

The 360 version isn't missing these online options probably because Microsoft wouldn't sign off on it's release without them. However as they weren't required for the PS3 release they just haven't been done. It's ruined what would have been one of the PS3's better games.