Reservoir Dogs

The Good
Reservoir Dogs is probably my favorite movie, as well as the favorite of a few of my friends. It was a surprise to me that, around sometime last year, I found out that they release a game for it like 14 years after it was released.

The game's levels takes place in-between moments from the movie. Fills in some blanks between the heist and the end. I thought some of them were fun to see, like writing in what happened to Mr. Blue and driving around as Mr. Brown after getting shot in the head. The driving levels in particular are pretty fun to see since they incorporate some of the iconic moments like Mr. Orange getting shot and Mr. Blonde kidnapping a cop. I liked the more original stuff as well, like the tutorials were actually kinda nice since it was just the characters training Mr. Orange and bickering at each other.

The gameplay isn't anything spectacular, but it has some interesting mechanics. You can order around npcs by threatening them with a gun and controlling them with the right stick: they can be used to open doors locked from the inside, open safes, and enter codes into locks (otherwise you'd have to break them and sound an alarm). The hostage mechanics have a bit of depth to them: civilians can be threatened easily, security guards will only drop their weapons if you are holding a hostage, and police/swats will only drop their weapons if you beat your hostage. Every hostage has health that decays while you hold or control them, and drops when you beat them until they pass out. As little as it makes sense for an unbeaten person to just pass out by being told to move somewhere and open a door, it does keep the player from slowly dragging the same dude around for the whole level so I'm fine with it.

Something about this game that I wasn't expecting was that it had different endings (kinda). How do you achieve them? Playing every level will change your rank on a scale depending on how much you kill. If you kill as little as possible, you're a Professional; if you kill pretty much everyone, you're a Psychopath; in between the two, you are a Career Criminal. A somewhat interesting mechanic that adds some replayability, and the idea would be shamelessly stolen by Toby Fox 9 years later.

(Spoilers) The different rankings will give you 1 of 3 scenes during the credits, showing what happens to Mr. Pink after leaving the scene at the end of the movie. He either escapes, gets arrested, or gets killed. I thought it was kinda neat, since what happened to him in the movie was really vague, and it all of them could have potentially happened.

The Bad
The stuff I liked were executed in a pretty underwhelming way.

I liked the style and story of the driving levels, but some of them have pretty tight restrictions to beat, and they are REALLY hard to get any ranking other than "Career Criminal" on. I got the "Professional" rank on the Mr. Blonde level somehow, meanwhile I was "Career Criminal" on the first driving level after blowing up 30 different cars with my gun (a level where you don't need to shoot anything).

As interesting as the hostage mechanics are, they get REALLY stale when you're doing a Professional run. You just grab a guy, yell at other guys to get against the wall, smack your hostage on the head to make cops drop weapons, put the cops against the wall, rinse and repeat. It got so repetitive that I understood the mechanics to a T. I realized that hostages were like, a gun that shot invisible "put gun down" bullets at cops that penetrated, so I would line the cops up and fire the hostage at them. If you don't care to unlock all the cheats or see all the really brief endings, just play it like any 3rd person shooter.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of the movie, I'd say it's worth a shot. If not, you'll likely not care much for it. Don't expect anything groundbreaking or for it to be a hidden gem, it's more like a bit of quartz in a yard full of gravel. As a fan, I appreciate what it did.

The Good
When I first saw Reservoir Dogs sitting on the shelves I have to admit I was very intrigued, though I thought it was originally the movie that accidentally got put in with the video games, but I was taken back when I realized it was an actual video game, but for $49.99, I cautiously (and thankfully) waited until it dropped more or until I can rent it. Only a couple of months later it was down to $9.99 in the bargain bin and instantly my brain screamed like that robot from Lost in Space, "DANGER, DANGER!", but for 10 bucks and a based on a great movie, what they heck, can't be that bad...right?

Well, there is a good bit to love this game especially the music, which is authentic including "Stuck in the Middle with You" which instantly took me into the feel of a movie. Not only that, the voice acting is actually outstanding, sadly though on Michael Madson reprised is role as Mr. Blonde while the rest were impersonators, but they actually did a phenomenal job including the guy who did Steve Buscemi. I wanted to reach into the movie and hit Buscemi, but this guy actually is worse (which is a good thing) than him and makes we want to find this guy and choke him, he is that good of an impersonator.

The cinema graphics are exceptional, smooth, fluid and the lip sync is actual perfect, something some next-gen games can even get right nowadays. Plus, another feature I really enjoy is I guess what would be considered "Bullet Time" à la Max Payne. It's actually comes in very handy at times considering the insane amount of cops that can appear on screen at any given time.

But, the one thing that really draws me in is the concept and storytelling. Granted it is based on the movie and recreates that, but there are also side stories that tell of how everything came to be afterwards like where the diamonds were hidden and what happened to certain characters and how it lead up to their fates. I especially love the Psycho/Professional path you can take which determines which ending you can see, it actual gives it a bit of a challenge since you have to not kill a lot of cops and civilians, which can be very hard to do at times.

The Bad
Well, for everything I like about this game, there are more that actually makes me hate this game. One of which is the constantly revolving camera, it's like it has ADD and can't make up its mind which angle is the best and can actually make you a bit sick at times. Even though I did like the cinema graphics, the in-game graphics are a different story. Sadly there are a bit jagged at times and some of the characters have a bit of blockiness to them from time to time.

Another thing that this game and most of the genre suffers from is the control and targeting. The control is a little off which is a little odd since it's analog and sometimes when I try to move up and to the right, instead my character does a severe right angle. I thought at first it was my controller, but after trying it with several other's I still got the same result. Also, the targeting system is hectic such as trying to target a nearby enemy but instead it targets an enemy far away. Hostage taking is also very, very tedious, taking forever at times and most of the time my hostage ends up getting killed by the cops that are trying to hit me and hitting them instead and gets very very annoying since I get the blame for it.

But all of this is nothing compared to the complete asinine feature which is the driving stages. Now granted without these stages the game would be a bit shorter, plus it would mess up some plot holes essential to the game, but I thought they could have been a bit better. At first I took the stages seriously trying not to damage my car and avoiding every potential collision, but after hitting a box truck head on...my car bounced completely backwards and then I realized that it's like I'm playing Crazy Taxi. I'm trying to get a passenger to a location in a certain time limit and bouncing off of vehicles like rubber. It's kinda sad and frustrating at times as well since you can actually get caught on guard rails and trees and get stuck at times and cause me to lose my game, another annoyance.

The Bottom Line
All in all, Reservoir Dogs is a mixed bag. For everything I see that makes me say "Holy Crap!", I find something else that makes me say "Oh crap, come on". I truly wanted to like this game so much since I love the movie, but the clunky controls, sickening camera movement and the pointless driving stages makes me want to stop playing it and just let it collect dust on the shelves, but the great acting and beautiful cinemas keep making me come back again and again.

If you're a fan of the movie at least check it out, just don't expect a masterpiece, but if you have never experienced the movie before, rent that instead because if you play this game first, you might actually be put off by the movie.