When
David Fincher’s interpretation of Chuck Palahniuk’s post-modern,
anti-materialistic opus Fight Club hit theaters, it instantly became a cult
classic. Now, some five years after the fact, Vivendi Universal is releasing a
video game based on the beloved film. It may seem very ironic to make a video
game based on a film in which material objects (like video games, for example)
are shunned and even destroyed, and even more ironic to make one that is a
stagnant coupling of simplistic fighting mechanics and low difficulty. Fight
Club is a very weak fighting game that has almost no depth or complexity to it,
and one that nearly any gamer regardless of skill level should be able to
completely finish in one night.
The
story mode in Fight Club is pretty much a throwaway, one in which a character
that you create tries to infiltrate Project Mayhem, and tries to become a part
of the group by getting into a series of pointless fights with folks from the
film working your way up to “Jack”, or Tyler, as it were. The story has little
to do with the movie, and even though some events occur congruently with the
plot, fans of the film won’t miss out on much by skipping the story mode
altogether. In another forehead-slapping gesture, upon beating the story mode
(a simple feat that will take around 10 to 15 minutes) you unlock Fred Durst as
a playable character in the arcade mode. While some people might consider the
ability to beat the crap out of Durst its own reward, his presence in the game
feels like shameless marketing and ultimately unnecessary.
All of
the fighters in the game fall under three basic categories, brawlers, martial
artists and grapplers. Characters within the same classes each have pretty much
the same moves, from punches and kicks to throws. On the other hand, the three
fighting classes all control basically the same anyway. Grapplers fight with
the same mechanics as brawlers, which will disappoint gamers looking to use
complex methods of subduing opponents like reversals and extensive counters.
For the most part, regardless of whom you play as, the game is simplistic button
mashing with no real strategy.
The
graphics in Fight Club have good parts and bad parts. The character models look
pretty decent, as do the backgrounds. The framerates are also pretty smooth for
the most part. However, the animations look pretty stiff and jerky. While
there are some cool bone-breaking finishing moves that cause the screen to go
into x-ray mode and show the bone getting shattered, there are very few of these
to go around. This is the case for most of the cool graphical effects in the
game, like blood splattering on the camera lens, as they become redundant before
too long.
The
sound effects are composed of overly hammy voice acting and a few cuts from the
Fight Club soundtrack. The actual Dust Brothers songs from the film stand above
the rest of the game’s music, which is mainly made up of techno knock-offs of
songs in the movie.
Fight
Club is not only a lousy fighting game, but a lousy
licensed
fighting game, meaning that not only fighting game fans will be sorely
disappointed, but fans of the film and book. The gameplay is overly simplistic
and far too easy to make it a fighting game to recommend.
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Gameplay: 4.9
The fighting
mechanics are very simplistic, all but eliminating the challenge level. All of
the fighters fall into three different kinds of classes, with little
differentiation between the three. While there are some unlockable characters
and extra features, most gamers will be so bored with the overall simplicity of
the gameplay to go through and try to unlock everything.
Graphics: 6.0
The graphics have
some good parts to them, like nicely detailed character models and some cool
effects. However, these effects grow redundant after a while and the animations
are pretty stiff.
Sound: 5.5
The music
features some nice tracks from the Fight Club soundtrack by the Dust Brothers.
However, the rest of the sound presentation is composed of over-the-top voice
acting, muffled sound effects and throwaway techno music.
Difficulty: Easy
Concept: 5.0
The game’s
storyline does nothing to complement the film’s story, only composed of a series
of pointless fights intermixed with a few elements from the film.
Multiplayer: 4.9
Two-player, System Link and XBox Live capabilities, which are all well and good,
but the gameplay severely limits the fun you’ll have in the multiplayer modes.
Overall: 5.0
Fight
Club has overly simplistic fighting gameplay and ultimately ends up being an
easy button masher with little complexity that doesn’t do justice to the film on
which it’s based. Fans of fighting games and fans of the movie will do
themselves a favor by skipping this one.
