So this game has been out for a few months now. Having finally played through this game twice I can honestly say that the blasting this game got from the major site’s and “professional” reviewers was overly harsh. This is a very fun game, but it does have flaws that stop it from being totally awesome.

For anyone who doesn’t know anything about this game. It is a 3rd person run”n”gun game. Set with a video filter to give it a old Drive-in theater look and feel this game is basically a chance to play a game that is in the same style as DESPERADO with Antonio Banderas. Not that that is a bad thing by any means. The story is your standard cheesy stylish action shooter movie far. Actress Eliza Dushku voices the role of Ruby. Our female “Desperado”. I have to admit for the amount of hype that I heard about her doing this project I thought the performance would be much better. I’m a Dushku fan, but Ruby doesn’t say much, preferring her guns and sword to do the talking. With the standard cheesy one liners thrown in during the combat. Which for me personally I found annoying.

Aside from the standard run’n'gun gameplay there quite a bit of platforming going on in this game. Some of which had me reminiscing the PS2 Prince of Persia days. In the gunplay Ruby has many acrobatic moves at her disposal. All of which will activate the “bullet time” . Whether your jumping through the air, vaulting off a enemy, or sliding on the floor. Which of course is how your going to be doing 99.9% of the time your killing bad guys. While in the “BT” Ruby will dual wield her weapons. Which you start with standard pistols and then acquire shotguns, sub-machine, and crossbows with explosive arrows. One arm will auto lock and the other is controlled by you so you can shoot at two simultaneously. For the most part Ruby controls fairly well. But the aiming is not a smooth as I would prefer. With the smoothest controls are during “BT” which isn’t too bad except during the sequences where you are riding on top of a car during the car chase sequences. Which with the choppy aiming can get your killed quickly. The ability to trigger the “BT” while stationary on a car roof would have helped alot. Boss battles are mainly quick timed events. Which work with the feel of the world they are going with.

Visually this game takes a very stylized direction. Everything is set up like the shoot’em’up movies we all love. With a filter that gives it that cheep film feeling. Or a film that has been run through the projector way to many times. Luckily you can turn the filter off. I point this out since a few people noted it made them a little motion sick. I’m not going into the graphics. Since on the PS3/360 there is a standard all games must hit. If I do comment on graphics they will be really awesome, or really sucking.

Audio wise think the cheesy movie music meant to pump you up during the action and your there. Ruby has one liners she throws out during combat. Some cool, some funny, but most just really stinky cheese.

For anyone interested in this game I call this one a rental. Or wait until it’s at least at $20 used. There are a lot of places where you will have fun. With a few places where your going to have to pause the game because it will make you bust out laughing with the randomness. Re-playability was pretty low to me. While I do recommend you play through this game if your a fan of 3rd person shoot’em’ups and cheesy movies of the same genre, The facts still stand. While not deserving the bashing it got it’s not the greatest thing in the world. A bit more time tweeking and some more focus work would have done wonders. Also for the amount of  A list cast they got to do the voices there should have been quite a bit more story. For me if there isn’t a lot of story why waste the money getting Eliza Dushku, Alan Cumming, and Malcom McDowell when your not really going to utilize their talents. You could have took that money and poured it into more polish.

This one ranks a 3.5 out of 5