Reservoir Dogs Preview

There is an adage called better late than never. The year 1992 saw the release of a movie named Reservoir Dogs, which told the story of 6 criminals and a jewellery heist gone horribly wrong. The film went on to become a major hit and started to be counted as one of the classic films. Fourteen years later the movie is being converted into a third-person shooter game by Eidos. The game was unveiled at E3 this year where 2 levels of the game were demonstrated and shown to public. According to reports the game tries to stick closely to the original story.

The film starring Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth tells the story of six unacquainted professional criminals who are brought together by a veteran thief to execute an intricately planned diamond robbery. After the heist they meet up at the rendezvous point only to discover that one of them is an undercover cop, another a homicidal maniac who likes to kill people just for fun and yet another who gets greedy and hides the loot. It’s extremely difficult to turn a movie into an entertaining video game sticking to the original story. But Eidos worked around it by providing realistic side-stories to fill in between the scenes. Realistic because most of them try to say what was left unsaid in the movie.

For example one level tells us exactly where the diamonds were hidden by Mr.Pink played by Steve Buscemi. Another tries to tell us why Mr. Blue was not able to reach the warehouse. Most of them involve chases. The gameplay looks similar to Hitman. The player has two choices; either he can make a clean heist with no blood spilled and taking hostages for his protection called as “Professional,” or alternatively he can try to blast his way out like a “Psycho”.

The game features 10 shooting levels and six driving levels with sixteen in all. Its in these driving levels that we get to know some extra information like how the cop, Marvin Nash, was brought into the warehouse and tortured by Mr.Blonde or how Mr.White succeeded in bringing a wounded Mr. Orange back to the warehouse. The ten shooting levels try to build up the plot of the film. The game has authentic soundtracks from the movie including K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ’70s playing in the background. The only downside of the game has to do with the characters. Except Mr. Blonde, who looks like Michael Madsen and who has given his voice, all the other characters look generic.

For those who will be playing this game because they liked the film, it will be difficult to feel the atmosphere of it in the game. Activision’s Minority Report suffered greatly as the main character bore no resemblance what so ever to Tom Cruise. But with an interesting storyline the game should be able to hold the attention of gamers. The release date is yet to be announced but winter would be a good guess.

Vinay Mallabadi