The Club review

For example, that feeling you get when you shave milliseconds off a corner on a time trial in a racing game is the same in The Club - the only difference is that the delicate balance between tapping the break and slamming down the accelerator has been replaced by a couple of well-placed headshots capping sporadic sprints down short, sharp stretches of corridor. In fact, the driving analogy is actually very apt (in some cases you even have to do three laps of the same ‘course’) and every time you attempt a run the elements are always identical - enemy placement and behaviour as well as weapon and health pickups are exactly the same.

There’s no ‘emergent AI’ here, no ‘pack mentality’, no ‘team dynamics.’ This is a good old fashioned shooting gallery - arcade style. If a man jumps off a balcony at a specific point once, he’ll do it again, regular as clockwork. As a result, a good memory is as equally a powerful a weapon as a keen aim and quick trigger finger. On paper, this might not sound particularly exciting - and stretched out over 20 hours of traditional plot-driven blasting, it wouldn’t be. But The Club’s strengths only start becoming apparent once it’s really got its claws into you.

Because it’s so unique, and its trials so short and bite-sized, we’ve found ourselves playing a game in a way we’ve not done for years - sitting around a screen with a load of mates and actually taking it in turns to play the same challenge over and over again, well into the night.