Mr.Blonde, Mr.Blue, Mr.Terrible?

When I heard that one of my all time favorite movies was going to be turned into a game, I was a little skeptical, I'm sure it's not a mystery that movie to game transitions aren't successful. Reservoir dogs does unfortunately fall into this category but, I must admit, although it's centuries beyond the best game you'll ever play, it's not the worst either.

For those unfamiliar with the movie, It follows the story of 6 random men chosen to pull off a diamond heist, all with colour coded names. (Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, Mr. Blue, Mr. Brown) unfortunately for them, they are ambushed by the police while doing so, leading them to the conclusion that one of them is a police informer, but who? The diamond robbery is never actually shown in the film, only talked about in certain sequences which is where the video game comes into play. You must re create the scenes that were only mentioned in the film and some scenes after the movies ending.

With the X-box's life span shortening every day, I'm not surprised to see that they tossed in terrible graphics and even less-stellar voice overs. One of the more noticeable things about the graphics were the character models, especially the facial animations, it's almost as if they were literally trying to do the opposite mouth movement to what is being said, not to mention I had to guess who was who (after I saw the film numerous times), in other words, the characters look nothing like their real life counter-parts. The models weren't the only thing on thin ice. The environments were repetitious and bland. I understand that all the characters went through the same diamond store but giving me a couple extra corridors and hallways just doesn't cut it. The only actor that lends his voice to the game is Micheal Madsen (Mr.Blonde) he does do a half-decent job but the rest of the crew (and police) are awful. There's something unsatisfying about hearing a sound-a-like when it could of been all of the cast.

The music is probably the best thing going for this game, it features all of the original and a little remixed versions of the "super sounds of the 70's" plus an option to change the radio station while doing driving missions, it's nothing revolutionary, but for a game such as this, I'll take it. The dialogue is also another thing that was reletively untouched from the movie, the lines play out the same during the cut-scenes. Speaking of cut-scenes, they were almost unbearable to watch during this game, they scream "budget title" and the animations are choppy and not very fluent.



The gameplay will be very familiar to gamers, it's a "run and gun" experience. Reservoir dogs also relies heavily on taking hostages, this, was fun for about 15 minutes, after that, the pacing becomes sluggish and slow. You constantly have to drag your hostages across levels and about and only about 25% of the time will you actually be fighting man to man. You can essentially command police when a hostage is at gunpoint. I sincerely tried to get past the lacking police A.I but must nit pick. Abusing hostages tenses up the police forcing them to withdraw their weapons. This is where my crazy detector went off. You see, each hostage has a health meter that goes down every time you beat them, in total, you'll probably get in a few hits on the hostage before they pass out unconcious, leaving you with no shield. However, you must first target the officer you want to disarm and manually tell them to put down their weapon, therefore, if there is a group of police officers around you, A message can't be sent telling the group to put down their weapon, instead you have to tell 3 or 4, by now your hostage in unconcious, than, as soon as the officers see you don't have a hostage, open fire and kill you, the only way to actually get the all the officers in your area to lay down their weapons is an adrenaline meter that fills up the more havoc you wreak allowing you to perform an individual brutal attack to your hostage, still, I shouldn't need a meter for this. Furthermore, if a hostage is in your grasp, and you still decide to open fire on the police, they will promptly return fire, despite the fact that an innocent civilian's life is at stake. Taking cover? unlikely, not only will they kill a hostage to get at your flesh, they will also just stand idly by while you take them out. Your probably asking, why don't you just not take hostages and run and gun your way through? Good question, except for the fact that your health bar reduces faster than jet fuel. To be fair, the game insists that you take hostages and baby sit them and the police. Cops aren't the only opposition you will face in the game, security guards are also the "lesser" of the bunch being easily dis armable. And when I say easily, I meen twitch of a finger. Usually, security guards give up their weapon without trouble, simply shout the "drop your weapon" button, they'll comply. Do they really expect me to believe that security guards will drop their weapon in a crowd of police officers, while cops simply stand their ground? Being able to order the police around is a modest addition. Once the police are disarmed, opposition can be moved against a wall and ordered to kneel down.


A lack-luster ranking system was thrown in as well. At the end of each mission, your labeled either a professional, criminal or a psychopath based upon your actions and are eventually revealed to you. The only problem is that it's nearly impossible to go through levels without killing a foe, and it seems you want to move on to the next stage more than anything.

Driving was also added to the game, great!, an alternative to slow paced hostage taking and cop killing right? think again, the car handling is out to lunch, more often than not you'll find yourself trying to stay in a straight line rather than reach your objective, prepare for alot of skidding and sliding and many collisions with oncoming traffic.


The game certainly wasn't made for gamers who haven't seen the film yet. And even if you have seen the film, you'll be completely unsatisfied with the tweaking of the paths the characters took off screen. So, if you have missed out on the movie, you'll be lost and raising your eye brows every other cut-scene. The game does little to develop the characters, which was one of the main elements of the movie, and have now turned them into thieves that you don't care for in the slightest.


For fans of the film, don't think that this game provides a logical explanation as to what happend in the film, and if you haven't seen the film, avoid it at all costs, you'll end up playing another generic run and gun of yesteryear. Plain and simple, this game gives movie to game transitions a bad name.