The Outfit Xbox 360 review

An increasing number of titles are trying to blend the pretty solid wall between pure action, and real-time strategy. The likes of Brothers In Arms: Road To Hill 30 introduced the kind of tactical thinking that only hardcore PC strategists have required have required in the past, and managed to slip it into an action based tile with aplomb.

Unlike the previously mentioned Ubisoft game The Outfit fails to blend the two together into a satisfying whole. Instead, both areas are compromised to the extent that neither halves feel gratifying, or accessible. On the one hand, strategic choices are few and far between. Yes, you have ability to call in reinforcements that drop in out of the sky, and even the choice to set out defensive posts as you see fit.

But it fails to dig any deeper that making sure you have the maximum number of troops available to you at any one time, and ordering the most powerful armoured unit you can in order to blast away those damn Nazi’s.

In order to gain enough credits to keep splashing out on new recruits, and those huge tanks, you’re required to fulfil objectives. These range from taking out an enemy out post, through to defending a recently captured enemy out post. Not exactly a wide range of possibilities. Basically, it’s all about killing as many Nazi’s as humanly possible, as quickly as is feasible, and somehow achieving all the objectives along the way.

Really, what IS war actually good for?

This could work out in a games favour of course, just as long as you were handed the tools, and given an ample play space to stamp your authority upon. Rather than offering up numerous choices for how to progress – how to take one of those Nazi outposts for example – you’re simply pushed along the narrow track ahead and forced into the winning situation. You’re even prompted in the majority of cases as to what vehicles to purchase, and how to use the small amount of tactical option open to you. There’s no other requirement other than using supreme brute force to fulfil your objectives, and ultimately progress to the next along the narrow path.

Again, this could to a certain extent work to the games favour. Despite the restrictions, if achieving those goals in the manner that the designers decided was found to be of the required standard to invoke screams of joy. Unfortunately for us, even looking past the slim pickings when it comes to objective types, things fail to impress.

For a game that wears its arcade leanings on its sleeve, the weapons lack the required grunt. Each of the three characters you have to choose from differ in various respects, from cosmetic appearance, through to levels of health and energy, and all have a differing set of weapons to utilise. But each of which, the token machine gun especially, feel vastly underpowered.

It can take a handful of bullets to lay down an enemy that wandered into your sights, causing you to feel that the supposed powerful weapon in your hands has the power of a child’s pea-shooter. Despite the aiming reticule turning red to show off your target is in your sights, you’ll still repeatedly find yourself reloading while your opponent takes a few dozen bullets to the chest, before casually laying down.

It's a Money Making Machine

And this only extends the disappointment held by the poorly optimised control system. Though a slight twinge of noticeable auto-aiming certainly helps, battles can easily bog down into tedious stand offs, seeing who’s health depletes quickest. It’s only the same when it comes to the various vehicles you’ll find yourself in control of at various points.

Manoeuvring with the left analogue stick, and controlling your aiming with the right, it’s far too easy to find yourself disorientated, and endeavour to drive your tank up a wall standing ninety degrees from the floor. Attempting to utilise these vehicles as little as possible will only cause more dismay, as your characters can only sprint for a matter of seconds before they’re forced to slow back down to a jog.

A fact not helped by the reality of if you should happen to perish in battle, you’ll only be able to re-appear at previously captured checkpoints, meaning you need to slowly amble back to the point you died before getting back stuck into the enemy.

The flaws extend through to the aesthetics too, with some ridiculously over the top voice acting only causing groans of embarrassment, rather than hollers of hope as you’re urged to crush the enemy. Even the graphics lack the quality that we’d expect from a next generation title, looking like it would have easily slotted onto the original Xbox with ease. Though the ridiculous shine that most have been plagued with doesn’t exist, there’s an ultimate lack of detail in everything from the troops wandering around, through to the drab backgrounds.

Oh Well, Fair Enough.

Thankfully the multiplayer modes do add a touch of delight to a title whose single player section fails to impress in any respect. Teaming up with both AI troops you’re able to command, as well as a handful of fellow human players, things can even manage to become hectic enough to actually offer a touch of fun. But the fleeting bursts of exciting multiplayer action are vastly outweighed by the tedious running and gunning that stain the single player portion.

As astonishingly powerful Microsoft’s behemoth of a white box is, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we would all be agreement that Oblivion, and perhaps Project Gotham Racing 3 apart, it’s still lacking a handful of real system sellers. Hence, it’s a console that suits The Outfit so well. The Outfit flatly refuses to offer up the required quality, and even the high standard of enjoyment required to be a title worth recommending. Though the multiplayer premise sounds like an excellent watered down version of the Battlefield series, the same flaws that come to close to completely crippling the single player experience only detract from the overall quality of the game to the extent that it barely improves on the single player format.