Reservoir Dogs
Posted November 19, 2006
Sometimes, movies can translate into fairly entertaining games. EA Games' adaptations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King both provided quite a bit of fun. Activision and Treyarch's take on Spider-man 2 used the movie as a jumping off point for an enjoyable superhero adventure. While it didn't receive much in the way of critical praise, I even thought that Enter the Matrix was a neat idea that was marred by uneven execution. Unfortunately, when it comes to this genre of game, each positive example is accompanied by a couple dozen that are flat-out terrible. Reservoir Dogs may not be at the bottom of the barrel, but it does provide a short, boring and repetitive experience that most gamers would find to be a complete waste of time.
Gameplay:
Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is considered by most to be a modern classic. Over the past fifteen years, a plethora of movies have tried to turn a buck by aping the film's plot and style, sometimes making it hard to remember just how original it felt at the time. The new game by Lions Gate and Eidos would have benefited a lot from even an ounce of that originality.
For those who have never seen Reservoir Dogs, the plot is relatively simple. A crime boss brings together six strangers to rip off a diamond store. Things go violently wrong and the robbers have to figure out the identity of the cop they know must be in their midst. While the movie is about tense character interaction punctuated by brief spouts of bloody, brutal violence, the game is often about all-out, balls-to-the-wall action.
Most of Reservoir Dog's 16 levels center on the robbers' attempts to make it from the diamond heist back to their prearranged meeting place. Since all of the criminals are starting from the same point, several of the levels will actually have you navigating the same buildings and alleys multiple times, as different characters. This might be interesting if playing with different characters offered different experiences, but they're almost entirely interchangeable.
A typical level goes something like this. You grab a hostage and confront a few cops. After hitting the hostage a couple times, the cops will put down their weapons and you can order them against the wall. You trade your current hostage for a new one and proceed to the next encounter with cops, where you do pretty much the same thing. Or, if you prefer bloodbaths, you can just run through levels with your guns blazing.
Your weapons range from silenced pistols to full automatic machine guns to sniper rifles. As you progress, your adrenaline meter rises. When it is full, you can do a slow motion 'bullet festival', a familiar type of action to anyone who has played Max Payne or Enter the Matrix. You can also use a full adrenaline bar to perform a signature move on a hostage. In this situation, the camera cuts away from your character as he does something to a hostage that is so horrific that it causes all present cops to lay down their weapons and surrender.
The action levels are intermingled with five generic driving levels. Each of these involves trying to reach a destination either in a set amount of time or before the cops can get you. Your path is pretty much predetermined and it usually feels like you're driving on a racetrack instead of through a city. One driving level tries to introduce a little originality by having a cop in your trunk that will escape if you drive too slowly. Unfortunately, even this suffers from poor execution. Sometimes you will come to a complete stop and the cop sits tight, while other times he'll jump out while you're going at a pretty good clip.
Near the end of the game, the action shifts away from escaping to the meeting point and focuses on Nice Guy Eddie, Mr. Pink and Mr. White going to pick up some stashed diamonds. These levels play exactly like those that have come before, just in different settings.
All in all, everything about the action in Reservoir Dogs has been done better by other games. The levels are highly repetitive and you'll often find yourself shooting hostages or cops in a failed attempt to make things a little more interesting. If there is anything positive to be said about the gameplay, it would be that the controls are fairly effective and easy to use. That's hardly enough to salvage the game.
Graphics:
Though certainly nothing impressive, the graphics of Reservoir Dogs are above average for a PS2 game. The cut scenes are considerably better looking than the game itself, though they suffer from the fact that the makers of the game were only able to secure the rights to Michael Madsen's image. So the game's Mr. Blonde appears as a somewhat decent likeness of his movie counterpart, while all the other characters look different enough to be distracting. If they couldn't get the rights to everyone's images, it seems like it would have been better to construct all the character models from scratch. Other than that, the graphics are serviceable, with the 'bullet festival' feature standing out as a high point.
Audio:
The audio suffers much worse than the graphics in terms of not having rights to the actors' likenesses. With the previously noted exception of Mr. Blonde, all of the other characters' voices are done by people that seem to be attempting impersonations of the movie's characters. In some parts of the game, the attempts are close enough to get by. For the vast majority, though, they venture into the land of unintentional parody. The script suffers from the same type of problem. In areas, it's very close to the movie's dialog, but in other parts it is horribly off.
On the positive side, the game does feature many, if not all, of the songs used in the movie. While K-Billy is absent, Super Sounds of the 70's can be heard when driving or moving on foot through areas in close proximity to a radio.
Quentin Tarantino didn't shy away from foul language in his movie and the game follows in his footsteps in that regard. I can see parents who know nothing of the movie (or game ratings for that matter) being horribly offended to find they have purchased their child a game with excessive use of the f-word, graphic talk about sex and a butchered version of Tarantino's rant about the meaning of 'Like a Virgin'.
Conclusion:
Reservoir Dogs is a very short game. Most gamers could play through it in a matter of five or six hours without too much difficulty. The game attempts to offer replay value in a couple of ways. First of all, each level contains a number of blueprints that you can find and collect. No explanation is attempted as to why any of the robbers would be collecting blueprints, but as you get them, you unlock concept sketches of areas in the game. Additionally, the game offers three different endings, based on whether you behave as a psychopath or professional criminal throughout each level. Neither of these aspects are compelling enough to make someone want to play through the game a second time.
In short, Reservoir Dogs comes off as a poorly executed attempt to make an easy buck through a mediocre version of a highly esteemed movie. If you're a die-hard fan of the film and feel like you absolutely must play the game, do yourself a favor and settle for renting it. For anyone else, skip it entirely and spend your gaming time on a more deserving title.
Gameplay:
Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is considered by most to be a modern classic. Over the past fifteen years, a plethora of movies have tried to turn a buck by aping the film's plot and style, sometimes making it hard to remember just how original it felt at the time. The new game by Lions Gate and Eidos would have benefited a lot from even an ounce of that originality.
For those who have never seen Reservoir Dogs, the plot is relatively simple. A crime boss brings together six strangers to rip off a diamond store. Things go violently wrong and the robbers have to figure out the identity of the cop they know must be in their midst. While the movie is about tense character interaction punctuated by brief spouts of bloody, brutal violence, the game is often about all-out, balls-to-the-wall action.
Most of Reservoir Dog's 16 levels center on the robbers' attempts to make it from the diamond heist back to their prearranged meeting place. Since all of the criminals are starting from the same point, several of the levels will actually have you navigating the same buildings and alleys multiple times, as different characters. This might be interesting if playing with different characters offered different experiences, but they're almost entirely interchangeable.
A typical level goes something like this. You grab a hostage and confront a few cops. After hitting the hostage a couple times, the cops will put down their weapons and you can order them against the wall. You trade your current hostage for a new one and proceed to the next encounter with cops, where you do pretty much the same thing. Or, if you prefer bloodbaths, you can just run through levels with your guns blazing.
Your weapons range from silenced pistols to full automatic machine guns to sniper rifles. As you progress, your adrenaline meter rises. When it is full, you can do a slow motion 'bullet festival', a familiar type of action to anyone who has played Max Payne or Enter the Matrix. You can also use a full adrenaline bar to perform a signature move on a hostage. In this situation, the camera cuts away from your character as he does something to a hostage that is so horrific that it causes all present cops to lay down their weapons and surrender.
The action levels are intermingled with five generic driving levels. Each of these involves trying to reach a destination either in a set amount of time or before the cops can get you. Your path is pretty much predetermined and it usually feels like you're driving on a racetrack instead of through a city. One driving level tries to introduce a little originality by having a cop in your trunk that will escape if you drive too slowly. Unfortunately, even this suffers from poor execution. Sometimes you will come to a complete stop and the cop sits tight, while other times he'll jump out while you're going at a pretty good clip.
Near the end of the game, the action shifts away from escaping to the meeting point and focuses on Nice Guy Eddie, Mr. Pink and Mr. White going to pick up some stashed diamonds. These levels play exactly like those that have come before, just in different settings.
All in all, everything about the action in Reservoir Dogs has been done better by other games. The levels are highly repetitive and you'll often find yourself shooting hostages or cops in a failed attempt to make things a little more interesting. If there is anything positive to be said about the gameplay, it would be that the controls are fairly effective and easy to use. That's hardly enough to salvage the game.
Graphics:
Though certainly nothing impressive, the graphics of Reservoir Dogs are above average for a PS2 game. The cut scenes are considerably better looking than the game itself, though they suffer from the fact that the makers of the game were only able to secure the rights to Michael Madsen's image. So the game's Mr. Blonde appears as a somewhat decent likeness of his movie counterpart, while all the other characters look different enough to be distracting. If they couldn't get the rights to everyone's images, it seems like it would have been better to construct all the character models from scratch. Other than that, the graphics are serviceable, with the 'bullet festival' feature standing out as a high point.
Audio:
The audio suffers much worse than the graphics in terms of not having rights to the actors' likenesses. With the previously noted exception of Mr. Blonde, all of the other characters' voices are done by people that seem to be attempting impersonations of the movie's characters. In some parts of the game, the attempts are close enough to get by. For the vast majority, though, they venture into the land of unintentional parody. The script suffers from the same type of problem. In areas, it's very close to the movie's dialog, but in other parts it is horribly off.
On the positive side, the game does feature many, if not all, of the songs used in the movie. While K-Billy is absent, Super Sounds of the 70's can be heard when driving or moving on foot through areas in close proximity to a radio.
Quentin Tarantino didn't shy away from foul language in his movie and the game follows in his footsteps in that regard. I can see parents who know nothing of the movie (or game ratings for that matter) being horribly offended to find they have purchased their child a game with excessive use of the f-word, graphic talk about sex and a butchered version of Tarantino's rant about the meaning of 'Like a Virgin'.
Conclusion:
Reservoir Dogs is a very short game. Most gamers could play through it in a matter of five or six hours without too much difficulty. The game attempts to offer replay value in a couple of ways. First of all, each level contains a number of blueprints that you can find and collect. No explanation is attempted as to why any of the robbers would be collecting blueprints, but as you get them, you unlock concept sketches of areas in the game. Additionally, the game offers three different endings, based on whether you behave as a psychopath or professional criminal throughout each level. Neither of these aspects are compelling enough to make someone want to play through the game a second time.
In short, Reservoir Dogs comes off as a poorly executed attempt to make an easy buck through a mediocre version of a highly esteemed movie. If you're a die-hard fan of the film and feel like you absolutely must play the game, do yourself a favor and settle for renting it. For anyone else, skip it entirely and spend your gaming time on a more deserving title.