It’s always a bit scary when you take a big dive into the relative unknown, away from the comfort zone that has served you well. That’s exactly what Bizarre Creations has done by giving us a commercial release with no motor racing of any sort and is its first collaboration with Sega since the title that brought it fame in the first place, Metropolis Street Racer. Let’s see if we can get into The Club.

What the story boils down to is that big, corporate, wealthy businessmen are paying to watch people kill each other in the name of entertainment, much in the way people publically murder songs on American Idol. You are one such harbinger of death, intent of getting through the many challenges (and thugs) that lie within.

The Club has eight different locations in which to employ your many talents, from an English country estate to an abandoned cruise liner. Each place has a cover story to protect the carnage taking place inside. These are, as you’d expect, beautifully drawn but there’s a strange feeling of linearity. The stages here aren’t exactly massive (which is probably a lot to do with the online play that it feels forced towards) but they’re functional and serve the purpose for what they were intended - namely annihilation.

There are as many combatants to choose from as there are places to fight. Again there’s a greater variety than a KFC bucket; the only difference is The Club has fresh meat. A Police Officer who wants to get to the bottom of this “sport” and clear his name and a young, thrill seeking rich kid who lives on the edge are just two of the eight guys ready to do battle, each with their own back story.

The game itself is viewed from a third person perspective and involves running around trying to kill as many people in a row as possible and to keep your bonus multiplier going, but more on that later. Some of the rounds have an exit point that needs to be reached before a small implant in your body detonates, a little bit like that Christopher Lambert “classic”, Fortress (I believe it was called an “intestinator”. Tee hee! – Ed.). Other times you’ll be fending off as many ruffians as you can until the timer runs out – all to the tune of a running commentary by a gravelly, thrice-nicotined Englishman.

The main selling point with The Club is the combo system. This awards you an extra number onto your multiplier if you kill an opponent before the timer runs down. To keep it running you can do different things; either kill someone or shoot one of the numerous Skullshots spread throughout the levels. More points can be achieved by performing various actions before, or during, the death dealing process. Head shots and the like are a given, but actions like jumping over hand rails and forward rolls before firing are other ways to do this.

The sound effects mostly do their job though the music tends to disappear into the background a little too much - which is a shame, as it takes a fair portion of the atmosphere with it. The gun blasts are guttural and meaty, while others sound like a damp fart, so the balance isn’t quite there.

The online mode gives up to eight players a chance to run around and create havoc. If you can picture yourself after a few drinks and then going to laser tag, you pretty much have an idea of how this works. Standard Deathmatch options are there, as well as a few VIP variants, but online the multiplier is dropped to allow the usual Death/Kill tally to work. There are leader boards aplenty for this game and that may well be a big draw for some, but might just keep others away from the multiplayer side altogether. There’s a solid structure here, but it’s one that takes a bit of getting used to as well as the patience of a saint, although with all this violence it may as well be Saint Lucifer.

So, as a whole, can The Club really cut it on the shop shelves? That really depends on a few factors. As a game, it feels a little shallow and the high end price tag that it’s retailing at feels a bit too lofty for something that’s really nothing more than Project Gotham Killing. The small, sharp levels almost have a Timesplitters feel to them, but The Club doesn’t have quite as much depth. It’s a game that’s trying to bring its own style to a tired genre and it should be credited for that, but the gloss that’s been laid over this ambitious idea cannot hide the fact that the single player just doesn‘t feel strong enough to make it on its own.

There’s a distinct feeling that with a lot of perseverance and a smaller price tag, this could be a nice title to get hold of and would be a great laugh with a couple of buds. It’s a little like Mario Party for maniacs. It’s a game that’s capable of getting a few good laughs with a load of pals, but on its own would be forgotten about a little too quickly. The day The Club hits the bargain bins will be a fine day indeed, however, and if a group of jaded gamers gang together to form their own Club, there’ll be a hell of a lot of fun to be had.