Fight Club

Based on the popular book and movie adaptation, Fight Club is a brutal fighting game where bones break and blood is plentiful. With both a solo story mode and competitive multiplayer, this extreme brawler will have you fighting until your character can't stand anymore. The original story mode leaves a bit to be desired, but fans of blood-soaked action will enjoy the novelty that this title provides. While it's nowhere near as memorable or rich with atmosphere as its movie counterpart, Fight Club is a fun one-on-one fighting game that introduces some unique mechanics.

Main Game Features

• Story and multiplayer modes
• Over 10 playable characters
• Excessively violent fighting

Story

While the story mode contains some of the same characters from the movie and book, the plot revolves around a character who's entirely new to the world of Fight Club. In this original plot, you play as the simply named “Hero”, a protagonist who seeks fame in the notorious Fight Club. Upset after his girlfriend leaves him, Hero must prove his worth by climbing the Fight Club ranks. Along the way, Hero learns more and more about Tyler Durden and his Project Mayhem plan, bringing a bit of the core narrative into this spin-off tale.

Although the overarching plot does its best to follow the story of the movie, it offers some odd differences due to the inclusion of the lead character. Overall, while it's fun to see recognizable characters like Tyler Durden, the story here is lackluster and simply serves as a way to motivate you from fight to fight. It's a shallow tale of redemption that fails to match the interesting message of the source material and pales in comparison to other fighting game stories of its time.

Gameplay

While the story might not be the best thing in the world, the fighting system in Fight Club is notably exciting, drawing from 3D fighting games like Dead or Alive 3. With its levels of vicious blood and gore, Fight Club can at times feel like a 3D version of Mortal Kombat, with an added attention to grapples and submissions. In addition to striking your opponents with face and body shots, you can also perform brutal finishing moves that aim to be as graphic as possible. Blood is aplenty, spurting on the ground and screen, as you pound your opposition into a bloody pulp.

Fight Club also includes an interesting Hardcore mode feature, where your wounds are carried over from battle to battle. Since your character can only survive so much punishment, they will eventually be forced to retire if the injuries pile up. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of levels and most of the characters are uninteresting, making this a fighting game that's only worth a single playthrough. However, if you love the brutal X-Ray moves in games like Mortal Kombat X, you'll be happy to hear they're also on display in Fight Club.

Conclusion

If you really enjoy the movie and wish you could try your hand at the bloody battles of Fight Club, this game adaptation is a perfectly safe way to do so. While the gruesome fist fights are satisfying to watch and some of the mechanics are new and exciting, the core gameplay can grow dull after a few hours.

Pros

• Grimy and bloody fighting
• Over-the-top special movies
• Funny unlockables

Cons

• Sluggish controls
• Short single-player campaign
• Lack of character variety

On the Silver Screen:

Underground boxing, schizophrenic masochism, and soap rendered from human fat collide in this, the only Brad Pitt movie your girlfriend probably hates.

On Your TV:

The Fight Club game zeroes in on one aspect of the film--the fighting. A handful of the film's main characters (and somewhat less-memorable ones like, uh, some guy named Raymond) will beat each other to bloody pulps using street boxing, wrestling, and martial arts moves.