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Mmalnox's Reservoir Dogs (XBX)

[March 5, 2008 11:40:13 PM]

Summary: Reservoir Dogs is a third person shooter game based on the film by Quentin Tarantino. The player is trained to rob a bank.

GamePlayI: This game had potentially good ideas but the structure was no good. I attempted to play as long as I could but the game was pretty horrible. The fact is Reservoir Dogs should have stayed a film. The beginning of the game is a sequence of three training sessions before the actual game begins. The player can skip the training and go directly to the game but I chose to do the training. The training sessions allow the player to get familiar with the controls particular to this game. The game is based on the film's narrative. You are being trained to rob a bank. In the training you learn that how to crouch and roll, how to capture a hostage, how to neutralize security guards and cops, and how to get a banker to open a safe. These are great ideas but overall the actual game play was not interesting. Once the training sessions are done, the first level begins inside the bank and the player must get downstairs and out the front doors using the tactics from the training. You are given weapons and the control layout is basic to a third-person shooter. You can aim, reload and fire. The player can also hit the Left trigger to lock onto the target. There is also an adrenaline scale, kind of like your health. There is a button which the player can go into Bullet Festival mode and this just slows everything down (slow motion) and you shoot as many people as you can, then there is a cut scene showing everyone you shot falling down dramatically. There were also too many cut scenes. The player can skip them, but even so, there were too many. I think this game depended purely on the film and the cut scenes of the film to build a narrative for the game, but it made the game boring and not fun to play. Reservoir Dogs is one of my favorite movies and playing video games is one of my favorite things to do, but the two did not fit well together.

Game PlayII: I had to force myself to play a second session because I really did not want to. As the game proceeded the levels were not linear at all and did not really relate. In one level you have to race against one of your friends and the player learns how to shoot people from the car. Again, the linear structure, the objectives, and the game play was all just depending on the popularity of the film, but the game itself was not created with good and unique challenges. There was not a defined and clear goal. There were not too many rewards and the mechanics were not very appealing, just mediocre. Overall as I played I was not interested in progressing through the game and I cannot think of anything about the game that makes it unique and interesting. Again, I could tell that the ideas behind the game had some potential, but the game reflected the film by placing too many cut scenes and then the player just shoots people. The cut scenes were more interesting then the actual game play itself.

Design: The graphics of this game were also pretty simple. I enjoyed the camera angles and movement very much, there was great movement while the player mobilizes around the game. The settings were diverse, which semi-made up for the horrible game construction. The graphics were overall really good, but this proves that the graphics do not make game play good at all. I was just staring at the cool graphics and movement of the AI, but the game play was boring. Also. the warehouse was accurate to the film which was cool. In the film the warehouse is pretty much where the entire film happens, and the graphics of this area were set perfectly to look like the actual warehouse. The characters looked like the actors, but again this all goes back to what was wrong with this game. They had the graphics and movement of a third person shooter, but with no good game goals, challenges, conflict or linear progression.