Reviewed: March 26, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Vivendi Universal Games
Developer
Genuine Games
Released: November 16, 2004
Genre: Fighting
Players: 2
ESRB: Mature
5
7
3
5
4.9
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I didn’t think I’d get off that easy. Welcome to the real Fight Club review for the Xbox. Yes I know this game came out in November and somehow it manage to slip through the holiday cracks. It was only a few days ago on a routine treasure hunting expedition in the GCM vaults that we found our Xbox copy of Fight Club clutched in bony hand of the skeletal remains of the original reviewer assigned to the project. Obviously he tried to talk about Fight Club and met an untimely demise.
I’m pretty much against movies being turned into games. The results are seldom pleasant and when the game arrives five years after the movie, does anybody even care anymore? Fight Club was one of those movies that had a limited cult following in theaters and probably did a bit better on DVD. I know I enjoyed the bonus materials more than the actual film. But fighting has always been a popular genre for videogames and when you spin it with the seedy underground backroom brawls from the movie it definitely sounds good on paper.
Fight Club desperately wants to be the Xbox equivalent of Tekken with a bit of bone breaking Tao Feng thrown in. While it offers a reasonable fighting engine it is nowhere near being on the same level as Tekken or any fighting games actually available for the Xbox. And if you were hoping for the movie plot to save the day, stop hoping.
Fight Club delivered a powerful message in the movie but it fails to communicate that same message or anything original in the game. The plot quickly falls away to reveal fight after fight. There is very little character development and you never really care about the cast or why you are fighting. Much of this is because of the characters taken from the movie. Often, minor cast members are brought into the game while leaving out the ones you might actually remember.
Jack (Edward Norton) and Tyler (Brad Pitt) are in the game, at least in name. Their CG likenesses look nothing like the actors and don’t even get me started about the voice work. It’s apparent the designers got the rights to use the name but not the cast or their likenesses.
From the onset you have your primary fighting modes just like any other fighting game. The Story mode is usually the first place you go but in Fight Club this is a huge disappointment. It’s only loosely based on the movie, and is told with still frame cutscenes that aren’t very well drawn.
When you tire of the story you can try out the Arcade, Vs. Survivor, Training, and Online fighting modes using System Link or Xbox Live. You have ten characters to choose from when you start and four more are available to unlock through gameplay.
While the film was basically all about street fighting the game tries to broaden the scope by including several fighting styles such as grappler, kung-fu, and brawler. Unfortunately, brawler and kung-fu are so similar it doesn’t really matter which one you pick. These two modes are about fast moves and quick fighting while grappler puts the game more in a wrestling perspective with throws and pins.
Borrowing a bit from Tao Feng you are able to break opponents bones, so they cannot use and arm or leg. This is an interesting twist that becomes a major strategy for both the solo game and online play.
There are plenty of moves you need to learn but you can only view them in the training mode unless you go find a list online and print it out. Actually, anything you might find online will likely be better than what’s included since the game lists are poorly organized.
The graphics are much better than the game deserves. The character designs, animations, and textures range from average to quite good and the backgrounds and fighting environments are generally really good, some even feature a few break away areas that lead to secret rooms. There is a lot of breakable stuff to interact with as well.
The camera works very well and solid objects and walls go transparent when they get in the way of your view. There are plenty of lighting effects, weather, and other subtle touches that put a slight polish on what would otherwise be some rather uninspired level designs.
The soundtrack is a modest attempt to reprise the music from the film. You’ll likely recognize the Dust Brothers music as well as a few renditions of songs from the soundtrack that come off more like poor imitations. And when the annoying rock and metal tracks kick in you’ll be scrambling for that custom soundtrack feature.
You really need to get at least one of the stars to sell a movie license game title but that didn’t happen here. Only a few of the characters sound remotely like their movie counterparts but as previously mentioned, Jack and Tyler look and sound nothing like Ed and Brad from the film.
Speech doesn’t seem to be a priority in Fight Club anyway. Most fights are void of dialogue, even playful taunts or banter, but most surprising are the near-silent movies where characters’ mouths are moving but there aren’t any words coming out.
Fight Club offers some additional content on Xbox Live including new music and a bonus fighter, but since you can already use your own music and probably won’t maintain your interest long enough to play the 14 fighters provided, these bonuses are simply icing on a stale cake.
The online fight modes are probably the only saving grace to Fight Club but even several months after the game has been out hardly anybody was playing it on Xbox Live. Apparently, it’s 15 minutes of fame has come and gone so don’t count on online play unless you actually know other people have the game and will play with you.
It’s ironic that Fight Club would have been a better game if it had abandoned the film license. The fighting isn’t all that bad; I’ve certainly played worse, but when the presentation is so horrible that you are forced to look past it to get to the action, it might just be too much to ask of most gamers.
There are some really good ideas here but none of them were fleshed out to any success and there likely won’t be a future installment to perfect them. If you are really hard-up for a fighter on the Xbox you can certainly give this a try as a last resort, but just about anything else you could possibly play in the genre will be better than Fight Club.