The Bouncer
is billed as the PS2's first game containing Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and
full use of the pressure-sensitive analogue pad while you fight, but it's an
intensively depressing experience.
Let's start with the plot. A young girl called Dominique has been kidnapped
and your trio of bouncers - Sion, Volt & Kou - have to save her.
That's it.
Remember the old arcade and ZX Spectrum beat-em-up Target: Renegade?
It's like that but in 3D and without the ability to pick up items around you
with which to batter your opponent.
There are three ways to play the game:
Survival Mode: Fight horde after horde of enemies.
Versus Mode: up to four players using a PS2 multi-tap
Story Mode: Same as 'survival' but with pointless FMV sequences
that you'll want to skip time and time again(!)
The graphics are blurry most of the time making it nigh-on impossible to get
any sense of involvement out of it and the sound is standard kick-punch
nonsense. As I said before, it's the first PS2 game to contain Dolby Digital
5.1 sound, but this only occurs during a handful of FMV sequences - and not
to particularly great effect at that either - while the rest of the game misses
out on a great opportunity.
Playing the game itself isn't the greatest of experiences. It states that the
more you press the analogue buttons the harder the kick-punch delivered to the
bad guys, but it's more like it doesn't matter how hard you press, you either
kick the shit out of them or they do the same to you. According to the press
blurb, each of the characters can learn up to seven or eight unique moves as
the game progresses, but they still just deliver the same old same old.
It's all been done before and so much better at other times too.
There's a nice moment when the train station explodes, but overall you'll get
more excitement by setting the vibration to 'on', getting into a heavy fight
and stuffing the controller down your pants.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
The Bouncer
is billed as the PS2's first game containing Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and
full use of the pressure-sensitive analogue pad while you fight, but it's an
intensively depressing experience.
