In between rounds of Oasis’s “Wonderwall” in Rock Band, I took the opportunity to download two new demos – “Devil May Cry 4” on the PS3 and “The Club” on 360. Both games are due out in a few weeks; That’s right, the incredibly brief gaming drought is over already. I hope you all finished up Uncharted, Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect and Orange Box in the last few weeks. Oh, you didn’t? Well, too bad.
I’ll talk about “The Club” first, since it doesn’t seem to be getting very much coverage. You might know the developers by their other famous franchise, “Project Gotham Racing“. At first glance, PGR might seem to be just another arcade racer filled with scores of shiny expensive cars. Unlike Ridge Racer or Need For Speed, your objective isn’t just to win races, but to impress everyone by racking up Kudos at the same time. Drifting through corners, 360s and drafting all earn you Kudos points, as does completing sections of the track without hitting anyone. If you can string together these different types of feats with a minimum amount of time passing between each one, you will build up a combo meter which increases your total number of Kudos when the combo finishes. It’s unique enough that PGR’s publisher, Microsoft, owns a patent on the system. Incidentally, this is only one of two patents for a system in a videogame I’m aware of. The other describes the Sanity System for Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.
“The Club” is like PGR, except instead of controlling a car, you control one of an assortment of 8 mercenaries. And instead of pulling off car tricks, you shoot people.