It almost hurts me to have to write this review, because Fight Club is by far my favorite movie of all time. David Fincher's film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel is one of those rare films that can delight, disgust, and alter the audience's worldview; all within a two-hour timeframe.
This game does none of the above.
Let's forget for a minute that none of the original actors lend their likenesses or voice talents to this project. Let's ignore the fact that the game's attempt at capturing the gritty style of the film is laughable, at best. Even if you could look past these stylistic shortcomings, the underlying game is so terrible, so primal, that anyone who has played any fighting game, ever, will find Fight Club to be a mind-numbingly boring romp. Fight Club makes Tao Feng look like Soul Calibur 2.
The arcade mode is exactly what you'd expect, with painfully written cutscenes bookending each character's "story." There is also a more traditional story mode, which parallels the events of the feature film. It's promising at first, but quickly devolves into a confusing mess. It's as if the developers tried to take everything great about the film, and compress it into about five minutes worth of subpar CG storyboards. It's a disgrace to what a fighting game story mode could be, and it's a disgrace to the brilliant source material.
The game's visuals aren't too bad from an objective standpoint. It's neat to see some of the film's memorable locales in a 3D interactive environment. The character models are sufficiently well rendered, but most of them look absolutely nothing like their film counterparts. Still, when you judge the visuals from the perspective of recreating the atmosphere of the film, it falls considerably short of the admittedly lofty goal.
Aside from the gameplay itself, the most offensive part of the game is the soundtrack. Let's get this straight: A game based upon a film based upon a novel about anti-corporate militias and the dangers of the lies of pop-culture… features music from both Korn and Limp Bizkit. Oh, okay. That makes all sorts of sense. Even more disgusting is the inclusion of Fred Durst as a hidden character, although it is rather satisfying to see the jerk get pummeled with real-time damage.
The saddest thing about Fight Club the game is that this is going to be many people's first experience with the material. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and this one reeks. The ninth and final rule of Fight Club: You do not buy halfhearted, trashy tie-ins based upon Fight Club!
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