When it comes to the series of Hidden Gems, I try to avoid talking about movie based video games, because that is a very easy thing to look for. How much people are going to go out of their way to look for a game that is made from the success of a film. They are always known to be cheaply made and only exist to get more money for the film it is based off of. But after playing this…. Thing, I’d like to say that I am willing to review obscure movie-based games, but only if they are either amazing or terrible. If it’s okay, it just won’t do. So, with that out of the way, let us discuss the game I got from the back of a video store, Fight Club: The Game.
~Story~
For the sake of the video game alone, I will be looking at it as both a game that is part of the source material and as it’s own game. And spoilers, it sucks in both categories. The story of Fight Club follows, not Edward Norton, but a guy, who is creatively known as Hero… What a name. Anyway, the game follows Hero, who, after a breakup and a public suicide attempt, is told by the bartender to join Fight Club, where he is told to meet Tyler Durden. What follows is an idiotic wild goose chase where Hero beats up characters from the original story of Fight Club just to find Tyler Durden, because no one wants to tell him, acts like a dick, despite everyone in the movie and book being respectful of each other, and never shuts up about Tyler Durden. You’d think he was practically stalking him. The game’s characters consist of Robert Paulson, Mechanic, Detective Stern, who is now a part of Fight Club, despite trying to take it down in the source material, Lou, Edward Norton, who is called Jack in the game, Tyler, Irvin, Angel Face, and Raymond, the Asian guy who was held at gunpoint in the movie and was told to not join Fight Club and to go back to school and get a decent education. Yeah, he’s in Fight Club now. And the special characters consist of Abe Lincoln, who I’m assuming is because of a conversation Edward Norton and Tyler Durden had during the movie, and celebrity guest star Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, most likely because he mentioned the movie once in one song ever. What a great use of celebrities.
~Gameplay~
Fight Club takes on a fighting game, as you can probably guess. You have three fighting techniques. Brawler, Grappler, and Karate. Not that it matters, because it makes all of the characters feel the exact same. It isn’t exactly a great fighting game experience, especially when you are playing through the story mode. Each character you face feels the exact same, so it isn’t like it’s much fun. But speaking of the main story, how are those cutscenes? Well, the beginning and ending cutscenes aren’t too bad. They move… They function. They seem to have a more proper feeling. And then the cutscenes in between… Oh boy. At first, I thought my copy of the game was broken. And then I looked it up online. No, these cutscenes are meant to be a slide-show. I heard rumors saying that the people involved used two different groups of people to work on the cutscenes… And yeah, it shows. What the hell even is this? In even the worst kinds of games, they don’t do this. Let’s take Ride to Hell: Retribution for example. When you watch the cutscenes, as bad as they are on their own, you need to pause the cutscenes to find a funny face. Fight Club: The Game just does it for you. So, I hope you enjoy seeing some amazing derp faces in this game, because it’s filled to the brim with them.
Back onto the topic of fighting, there are only three fighting techniques. And it’s especially painful with Raymond, the Asian character. Yes, he uses Karate, and has a stereotypical Asian accent. It was honestly hard for me to not notice this. Aside from that, the gameplay is terrible. Each time you try to punch the guy with a combo, they will always block your attack, and have no damage. In most fighting games, the characters take reduced damage when blocking. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s just good enough to defend yourself and give you a slight chance to retaliate. In Fight Club, you will never have a chance to attack. Enemies will always attack without warning, and unless you are blocking the whole time, you will get hit. You can’t play this game smart at all just because of the broken AI. But don’t worry, you will manage to win with ease with the Nik Fight Club: The Game Guide. All you have to do is constantly do normal punch and low punch, maybe a normal kick and low kick to spice it up. The enemy will become so confused, that they won’t know what to do. Just Kenshiro those bastards until you end up finishing the game. The gameplay gets incredibly boring at this point, let me tell you. You will be fighting the same stupid AI in the same bland areas, without any shoes on. Fighting on a rainy dock, no shoes. Fighting in the streets, no shoes. But thankfully, there is a different mission, where you are tasked to beat a guy by breaking his arm. I honestly lost the first time because I didn’t know I had to actually break his arm. But I was so glad that there was something new. Sadly, that’s where the variety ends. After that, you are pretty much close to the end of the game.
~Ending~
~SPOILERS AHEAD~
Okay, so not only am I going to be spoiling this game, I am also going to be spoiling the ending to the movie it is based on, so I’d recommend skipping the ending part of this review. So, Hero finds Edward Nor- I mean, Jack, on the corner of Jekyll and Hyde Street. Hero tries to stop Jack from jeopardizing the plan of Project Mayhem, something I won’t even go into due to spoilers. So, anyway, Hero and Jack fight, and it is no different from any other fight in the game. Just normal punch, and low punch and get past Jack’s defenses. After that, Hero realizes that Jack and Tyler Durden are the same people and are part of alternate personalities. After that, the Hero ends up becoming Tyler Durden’s right hand man in the project. After that, you get the regular ending of the movie. I mean, it’s the Fight Club ending, so that’s not so bad. But with Hero having his own, super edgy scene. Seriously, it is hard to watch without cringing. So, after that, you beat the game and unlock the ultimate reward: Having the privilege of playing as Fred Durst. It’s everything I ever wanted.
~Legacy~
Fight Club: The Game was as well received as you can imagine. It was considered one of the worst fighting games in the world, for having a dumb fighting system, a terrible story, bad visuals, bad gameplay, bad characters, and just being a choppy and neutered version of the original story. Hell, in the behind the scenes features of the game, the actor who played as Detective Stern in the movie, Thom Gossom Jr., said he had even more lines in the game than he did in the movie, and the game seemed to have this thing called a budget in the original versions. I wonder what the hell happened. Maybe they did this because it was cheaper. And as for the new lines for Detective Stern… He isn’t even in the story mode. And character don’t talk in game, so not a single one of those new lines were used. Damn shame if you ask me.
~Verdict~
Fight Club: The Game is what a child who watched the movie on DVD thinks Fight Club is. That it is a movie all about violent fights and saying, “Piss off” to the man, and is all about high testosterone action, when that is the total opposite of the film, and is about male identity and society as a whole. With bad writing, boring gameplay, and some of the ugliest character models I’ve ever seen, I’d say that this is not something you should play. So, if someone ever tells you that Street Fighter of Skullgirls sucks because it feels like button mashing, have them play this game. I’d rather play a good looking and intense button masher than a slow, boring, and ugly as sin one. With that being said, Fight Club: The Game gets the rank of Bottom of the Bin. See you all next time.
~Story~
For the sake of the video game alone, I will be looking at it as both a game that is part of the source material and as it’s own game. And spoilers, it sucks in both categories. The story of Fight Club follows, not Edward Norton, but a guy, who is creatively known as Hero… What a name. Anyway, the game follows Hero, who, after a breakup and a public suicide attempt, is told by the bartender to join Fight Club, where he is told to meet Tyler Durden. What follows is an idiotic wild goose chase where Hero beats up characters from the original story of Fight Club just to find Tyler Durden, because no one wants to tell him, acts like a dick, despite everyone in the movie and book being respectful of each other, and never shuts up about Tyler Durden. You’d think he was practically stalking him. The game’s characters consist of Robert Paulson, Mechanic, Detective Stern, who is now a part of Fight Club, despite trying to take it down in the source material, Lou, Edward Norton, who is called Jack in the game, Tyler, Irvin, Angel Face, and Raymond, the Asian guy who was held at gunpoint in the movie and was told to not join Fight Club and to go back to school and get a decent education. Yeah, he’s in Fight Club now. And the special characters consist of Abe Lincoln, who I’m assuming is because of a conversation Edward Norton and Tyler Durden had during the movie, and celebrity guest star Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, most likely because he mentioned the movie once in one song ever. What a great use of celebrities.
~Gameplay~
Fight Club takes on a fighting game, as you can probably guess. You have three fighting techniques. Brawler, Grappler, and Karate. Not that it matters, because it makes all of the characters feel the exact same. It isn’t exactly a great fighting game experience, especially when you are playing through the story mode. Each character you face feels the exact same, so it isn’t like it’s much fun. But speaking of the main story, how are those cutscenes? Well, the beginning and ending cutscenes aren’t too bad. They move… They function. They seem to have a more proper feeling. And then the cutscenes in between… Oh boy. At first, I thought my copy of the game was broken. And then I looked it up online. No, these cutscenes are meant to be a slide-show. I heard rumors saying that the people involved used two different groups of people to work on the cutscenes… And yeah, it shows. What the hell even is this? In even the worst kinds of games, they don’t do this. Let’s take Ride to Hell: Retribution for example. When you watch the cutscenes, as bad as they are on their own, you need to pause the cutscenes to find a funny face. Fight Club: The Game just does it for you. So, I hope you enjoy seeing some amazing derp faces in this game, because it’s filled to the brim with them.
Back onto the topic of fighting, there are only three fighting techniques. And it’s especially painful with Raymond, the Asian character. Yes, he uses Karate, and has a stereotypical Asian accent. It was honestly hard for me to not notice this. Aside from that, the gameplay is terrible. Each time you try to punch the guy with a combo, they will always block your attack, and have no damage. In most fighting games, the characters take reduced damage when blocking. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s just good enough to defend yourself and give you a slight chance to retaliate. In Fight Club, you will never have a chance to attack. Enemies will always attack without warning, and unless you are blocking the whole time, you will get hit. You can’t play this game smart at all just because of the broken AI. But don’t worry, you will manage to win with ease with the Nik Fight Club: The Game Guide. All you have to do is constantly do normal punch and low punch, maybe a normal kick and low kick to spice it up. The enemy will become so confused, that they won’t know what to do. Just Kenshiro those bastards until you end up finishing the game. The gameplay gets incredibly boring at this point, let me tell you. You will be fighting the same stupid AI in the same bland areas, without any shoes on. Fighting on a rainy dock, no shoes. Fighting in the streets, no shoes. But thankfully, there is a different mission, where you are tasked to beat a guy by breaking his arm. I honestly lost the first time because I didn’t know I had to actually break his arm. But I was so glad that there was something new. Sadly, that’s where the variety ends. After that, you are pretty much close to the end of the game.
~Ending~
~SPOILERS AHEAD~
Okay, so not only am I going to be spoiling this game, I am also going to be spoiling the ending to the movie it is based on, so I’d recommend skipping the ending part of this review. So, Hero finds Edward Nor- I mean, Jack, on the corner of Jekyll and Hyde Street. Hero tries to stop Jack from jeopardizing the plan of Project Mayhem, something I won’t even go into due to spoilers. So, anyway, Hero and Jack fight, and it is no different from any other fight in the game. Just normal punch, and low punch and get past Jack’s defenses. After that, Hero realizes that Jack and Tyler Durden are the same people and are part of alternate personalities. After that, the Hero ends up becoming Tyler Durden’s right hand man in the project. After that, you get the regular ending of the movie. I mean, it’s the Fight Club ending, so that’s not so bad. But with Hero having his own, super edgy scene. Seriously, it is hard to watch without cringing. So, after that, you beat the game and unlock the ultimate reward: Having the privilege of playing as Fred Durst. It’s everything I ever wanted.
~Legacy~
Fight Club: The Game was as well received as you can imagine. It was considered one of the worst fighting games in the world, for having a dumb fighting system, a terrible story, bad visuals, bad gameplay, bad characters, and just being a choppy and neutered version of the original story. Hell, in the behind the scenes features of the game, the actor who played as Detective Stern in the movie, Thom Gossom Jr., said he had even more lines in the game than he did in the movie, and the game seemed to have this thing called a budget in the original versions. I wonder what the hell happened. Maybe they did this because it was cheaper. And as for the new lines for Detective Stern… He isn’t even in the story mode. And character don’t talk in game, so not a single one of those new lines were used. Damn shame if you ask me.
~Verdict~
Fight Club: The Game is what a child who watched the movie on DVD thinks Fight Club is. That it is a movie all about violent fights and saying, “Piss off” to the man, and is all about high testosterone action, when that is the total opposite of the film, and is about male identity and society as a whole. With bad writing, boring gameplay, and some of the ugliest character models I’ve ever seen, I’d say that this is not something you should play. So, if someone ever tells you that Street Fighter of Skullgirls sucks because it feels like button mashing, have them play this game. I’d rather play a good looking and intense button masher than a slow, boring, and ugly as sin one. With that being said, Fight Club: The Game gets the rank of Bottom of the Bin. See you all next time.
