Reservoir Dogs
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…
Tags: Reservoir Dogs Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Nov 15th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Reservoir Dogs (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
 |
To this day, I still believe Reservoir Dogs is the best film Quentin Tarantino has ever made. Pulp Fiction may have had more memorable moments, but as a movie Dogs is far better, and don’t even get me started on Kill Bill – it’s not even close. In a world full of heist movies, Reservoir Dogs represents something completely unique – a movie about a heist gone terribly, terribly wrong, where the majority of the film takes place afterwards, as the would-be robbers try to piece together just where it all went bad.
In light of all the recent videogame adaptations of old movies (From Russia With Love, The Godfather, The Warriors, Scarface), as well as the DVD re-release of Reservoir Dogs in a spiffy new “Gas Can Edition” (and if that doesn’t make sense, you need to watch the movie), it’s not surprising that Tarantino’s breakout hit would be due for the videogame treatment as well.
 |
One of the first things fans of the film will notice is how faithful the game is to the film – major plot elements remain fully intact, with some of the game’s cutscenes are taken from the movie word-for-word. All of the new dialogue remains true to the characters, fully maintaining their different personalities, and keeping the sense of camaraderie the group has, which gradually falls apart as the game progresses. In a brilliant touch, in parts of the game where you’re driving, the characters will talk and carry on conversations, just as in the film, and it’s all meshed in pretty seamlessly into the gameplay. In one early driving mission, Steve Buscemi’s character will be telling a story, stop to yell at you for sloppy driving when you hit a car or something, and then say “Where was I? Oh yeah, so then he said…”, all without missing a beat.
 |
For the voice acting, Michael Madsen reprises his role as Mr. Blonde, and the rest of the characters’ voice-alikes are all pretty good, especially the voice actor of Harvey Keitel’s character. Throughout the game, one by one you will control multiple characters as they each separately try to escape the scene of the crime (a formula that fits in well with the film’s unorthodox non-chronological method of storytelling), and while they all control the same, their personalities shine through in their dialogue. When Mr. Pink yells at the cops to put their weapons down, it’s in tones that are extremely nervous, conversely Mr. White acts like a professional who’s always in control, and Mr. Blonde often seems overly-relaxed and laid back, almost like he’s enjoying things. Top it all off with a soundtrack straight from the film and the audio presentation here is nothing short of sublime.
 |
The graphical presentation, on the other hand, isn’t so great. Frankly, this looks like a second-rate PS2 game with cleaner textures. Many of the characters don’t really resemble their film counterparts at all, and everyone in the game is cursed with a vacant face and stiff animation. And at this point, I’m sure I needn’t bother to go into detail about how the environments are bland and uninteresting, right? This late in the console’s lifecycle we expect a bit more than what we are given here.
As for the gameplay itself, it’s mostly in the form of a third-person shooter, with an occasional switch to driving segments. In the shooter segments, things are generally standard fare, with various weapons, a lock-on feature and so on. However, the game does do something very original in the form of an interesting system involving taking hostages and ordering people around.
 |
You can walk up to any enemy or civilian in the game and grab them, using them as a hostage. When you’re holding a hostage, security guards and police won’t shoot you, provided you aren’t shooting them, and they’re standing in front of you (they’ll slowly try to flank you, and getting to your sides or rear means they have a clear shot). In addition, people can be ordered around in these situations, following your orders to drop their weapons, open doors and locks, or drop down against a wall and stay there. A hostage is a wonderful thing, but their stamina doesn’t hold up for too long, especially when you run into cops, who won’t yield unless you rough up your hostage a little.
 |
At first, this hostage element seems ingenious, but soon enough the cracks start to show through. First of all, while the limited stamina of hostages would normally act as a barrier to keep you from just ordering everyone around, this limit gets thrown out the window once you realize you can just swap hostages, grabbing someone new once your current hostage is about ready to drop. You can actually make it through an entire level swarming with cops without ever firing a shot just by playing hostage hot potato.
 |
In addition, the game’s AI is often ridiculously stupid and inconsistent. Hit your hostage over the head and maybe you’ll get one cop to drop his weapon, but whether the other three right behind him will do so is a toss-up. And at sometimes, he’ll drop it only to pick it right back up. On the other side of the stupid spectrum, once you get someone to kneel at a wall, they will stay there indefinitely unless you shoot someone. This means that if you use hostages to get through a room with a dozen cops, and then move on, no one will think to, you know, pick up their guns again and follow you once you leave the room. Plus, it’s just damn silly to see a bunch of SWAT guys zipline down from helicopters touting riot shields, only to watch them just all give up and throw the shields and weapons down.
 |
Okay, so the hostage system is inventive and original, but ultimately just plain broken. What happens if you just… don’t use it? Presto! The game turns into a sub-par, boring third-person shooter, complete with creaky stealth elements that aren’t worth a damn. And with enemy AI being not particularly clever, and the environment not presenting any particularly unique situations, this is a third-person shooter that is not only sub-standard, but also repetitive. And as far as the driving levels go, they’re enjoyable and do a good job of breaking up the action, but they can’t carry the game.
Fans of the movie may still want to give this game a look, as it truly does justice to the source material and the hostage-taking gameplay is interesting enough to check out. However, if you’ve never seen the movie, the game doesn’t offer much to keep you interested once that novelty wears off.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great presentation that truly does justice to the film + Fantastic writing and voice acting + Soundtrack straight from the film + Hostage element is original and inspired |
7.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Unfortunately, the hostage element is also hopelessly broken - The rest of the gameplay is repetitive and sub-standard - The graphics are bland and ugly |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Reservoir Dogs does a good job of bringing the film to a videogame, and it makes a few good attempts at some original gameplay ideas, but the end result is a game whose defining gameplay mechanic is terribly broken, and whose remaining gameplay mechanics fail to make for a worthwhile game. Probably worth checking out if you’re a fan of the film, but otherwise, don’t bother. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Reservoir Dogs
Posted by Jake McNeill on Nov 15th, 2006 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
