While the premise has definitely been used before (Running Man, The Condemned) the idea of underground, brutal games of death is an intriguing and often times entertaining concept. But, like any good idea, it can grow stale and uninspired. Such is the case with Sega's offering, The Club.

The story goes that a mysterious group, known only as "The Club" puts a "player" in a game of kill or be killed against a group of boring look-alike enemies in various abandoned locations. The game pits your character (a choice of eight very generic and unoriginal cookie-cutter characters) against a sea of enemies littered throughout various stages ranging from an abandoned factory to an abandoned prison to an abandoned shipping boat (see a pattern here?). The Club harkens back to the old arcade days of high scores and fast times, but unfortunately this doesn't really adhere well to console gamers who are expected to shell out $60 for a game where the levels only last two to three minutes at most. The object is to run through a stage as quickly as possible, killing as many enemies as possible and increasing your kill score. Objectives change for the level but mostly stay within the confines of A) Getting to the level exit B) Beating a time limit to the exit, or C) Beating time limit to the exit after making multiple laps around the stage.

I had high expectations for this game, but unfortunately they did not live up to them. I thought it was a great idea and a neat story, but the gameplay and shooting didn't mesh with me.

Props to SEGA for creating this game, hopefully if they make a sequel they address the gameplay more!!

Fun game, but after a while it gets to feel like your doing the same thing over and over again. I would only recommend this as a rental, unless you have friends to play online with and you don't plan to do anything else for a while