Reservoir Dogs - Review PS2 - Eidos

The cult film that kick-started Tarantino's career has finally been made available to convert into game format and Eidos have done a fine job of producing something that will please fans of the excellent film. Admittedly from a gamers point of view there are a few areas that leave room for improvement but on a whole it's a tidy package.

Reservoir Dogs, Review PS2


The Story follows the plot of the movie very closely and you change characters between levels building up a new perspective as to how the fateful diamond heist unravelled. You begin by breaking out of the bank through the eyes of various gang-members via their different escape routes and then everyone meets at the warehouse and tries to figure out who set them up. It's not all navigating your way through confined buildings past security guards, officers and SWAT professionals, there's a few driving missions thrown in to give you a little light relief from shootouts. There's plenty of style, visually and from the dialogue, which keeps in line with the original film - even the soundtrack is there so you'll be constantly feeling you're controlling a smooth, cool criminal.

It takes no time at all to get to grips with the controls thanks to the training session in the warehouse so even by the end of the first level you'll have mastered and seen the best moves. It's not all about blasting your way out, unless you want to, as you can take hostages and use a little `gentle persuasion' to make the police drop their weapons and be neutralised. As with most games you build a power bar when you perform some sweet actions and once it's filled you can perform a signature piece of torture or activate a bullet-time sequence to execute a group of unfortunate law-abiders!

There's a good variety of weapons to collect and some nice free-roaming at times but the dialogue is what really keeps the momentum going. The cut scenes are often direct conversions of scenes from the movie and there's even some new stuff thrown in to wet the appetite.

The game looks great and with a small selection of tidy manoeuvres to execute it begins as a very exciting piece of work. The down side is that it's a relatively short game and it won't take you long to complete. To triple the size of the short game you can complete it at 3 levels of criminal to open 3 different endings. Shoot everyone you see to obtain the grade of psychopath, use your neutralising skills to be a professional or a bit of both for Career criminal. A nice idea to make you appreciate the different ways you can complete a level but with a reasonably limited number of moves it does make it feel pretty repetitive, which is a shame cause there's plenty of potential.

The Driving levels feel a bit like filler levels as you don't have to do anything other than floor it and dodge the occasional obstacle, but there simple nature means you can sit back a bit and enjoy the music. Actually it's not as dull as that, you can flip cop cars and have to stop the captured cop from escaping from the boot (or should that be trunk?) by staying above a certain speed so there's some short lived fun here.

If you haven't seen the film then there might not be enough here to make it stand out, even though you'll have a brief affair with it. But for fans like me then it has an extra little something that adds a brighter sparkle to a game that doesn't really contend with the heavyweights. Acting out the different escape routes and other scenes fit in perfectly with the film and that adds a new dimension to a brilliant idea. A bit like watching `Reservoir Dogs 2: The scenes from the cutting room floor'. Great style and some pleasing moves mean that at the very least you'll have a long weekend or few weeks of entertainment. Unfortunately I don't think you'll be coming back to this one very much after completion.

7.5 out of 10

Leeroy

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