Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a top-down tactical shooter about heists gone wrong and the gratuitous shootouts that follow. Players utilize up to three of the iconic Dogs from the film(sort of) across eighteen different jobs, including the infamous diamond heist from the film.
Beware the Tie-in
I was initially skeptical about Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days. My experience with games based on movies or TV often result in a sense of disappointment and regret. It’s unfortunately common for publishers to overlook core themes of source material. This results in an IP shoehorned into a genre that doesn’t fit. Thankfully, Big Star Games decided to adapt the core concepts of Reservoir Dogs into a game mechanic that works pretty well.
Players control each character via staggered simultaneous turns thanks to the game’s rewind feature, a play on Tarantino’s non linear storytelling. This unique feature offers a surprising depth to the game but also adds a random element. Enemy groups who behave one way during the first Dog’s turn may react differently when you rewind to the second and third. This is especially frustrating in later jobs where the Dogs are split up and unable to directly support each other. The learning curve steep and it takes some practice to get used to.
Fandom Don’t Tip
Movie fans may enjoy this view into the world of Reservoir Dogs, but many may be turned off by the character design. Legal issues likely prevented the original cast likenesses from being used in the game. The result are characters with similar silhouettes but little to no resemblance to the color coded Dogs. Each Dog also possess unique stats meant to make them distinct but in the end each dog is interchangeable.
Bloody Days also attempts to force interaction between the dogs before and after jobs. These short bursts of text offer little aside from mission context, personality highlight, and an excuse to insert more quotes from the original film.
These issues aside, Bloody Days offers decent replayability beyond the final heist. High scores eventually unlock better starting weapons and each job is repeatable. Big Star Games remains involved with the game community and will host regular high score competitions. These competitions will offer real world rewards in the form of Steam gift cards and more.
So whats the take?
In all Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days offers a fun game with challenging mechanics and good replay. At time of writing the game is $14.99 on Steam and in my opinion offers good value for the price. Are you unfamiliar with Reservoir dogs? Well, there is a currently a bundle that includes the original film too!
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