The Club

Sega sure is polluting the market this year with a slew of titles that they normally wouldn't be involved with. The Club is the third Sega title I've played this month so it's surprising that it is continuing with their new trend of decent titles.

The Club is a ugh club where you shoot things. Well, sort of I guess. It's more like a game where you race through an area blasting enemies. Hell, the game has no real plot, think of it as a plotless Fight Club but with guns instead of fists.

Graphically the game is a bit boring to look at. Not that it looks bad but nothing stands out as being interesting. The red arrow signs pointing you in the right direction don't help matters but everything has decent details and the colors are vibrant.

The problem with the game is that it really doesn't have a whole lot going on. I'll say it right now, this game was a blast to play. It's mindless and fun. It requires almost zero thinking and its balls to the walls action formula is kind of entertaining.

The game is split up into 8 arenas, each having it's own theme like a train yard, a ship, war zone, prison. You get the idea. Not all that unique or interesting but the maps feel like mazes almost. The maps themselves range from very small to medium size. None will last more than a few minutes and everything is just about speed.

There is usually 6 or more stages per arena. These stages have a few different goals. it might be to stay within a marked area for X amount of time and just surviving. Another might have you running "laps" around the stage. Or you may just need to blow stuff up and reach the exit. Either way it's as mindless as it can get and damn it sure is fun.

You gain combos and there are hidden items that give you multiplies and other stuff so it just becomes this over the top shoot'em up and it's just fun, which is something I can't say about a lot of games.

The problem I ran into though is that some of these stages took forever to load. one took almost 2 minuets to load and I think it took me a lot less to finish which sucks after a few times and if you lose or want to restart then it has to reload. You only get five retries per arena so you have to watch what you're doing.

Sadly the game really doesn't have much else going for it. There are eight playable characters but they play too much alike to be all that fun. Otherwise you get on-line play but the community seems to be kind of dead which is a shame as it is fun to just mess around in this one.

That's it though. It has no real substance. if this was a bargain title I would run out and buy it right now. As it stands though it isn't worth the price of admission but I would highly recommend renting this game as I had a lot of fun with it, more so than any other game I've played in 2008 so far.

Story - 2/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 7/10
Replay Value - 4/10

Final Score - 6/10