Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a game with a very well defined gameplay mechanic, but after a few hours it becomes something repetitive.

Reservoir Dogs Bloody Days is a nice indie game with its loveable side and flaws. The rewind system is a good idea and makes it a very good tactical game, but it breaks the rhythm of the pure fight. A Hotline Miami look-alike but not a play-alike.

It’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened to the film: Big Games didn’t try to remaster, remake or reimage the cult classic. In fact, the game and the film have nothing in common except for names, general setting and mismatched quotes that were used to make new dialogue – and no one gets upset when, say, a new pinball machine themed after their favorite franchise comes out. [Issue#221, p.85]

A neat mechanic that gets old quickly in this otherwise forgettable twin stick shooter.

If we take away blood and violence, we’ll be left with an empty shell with rewind mechanics. After first hour it becomes extremely boring and repetitive. Do not play this if you are fan of the movie.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a top down shooter where you can rewind time to use various Mr. Brown, Mr. Pink and the rest of the gang to do various bloody heists. The idea is nice but the game quickly become boring and repetitive.

A cool license and a clever time-twisting idea both go to waste in Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days. With more mission variety, character development, and technical polish I could see this being an unexpectedly fun top-down shooter. As it is, its lack of ambition in scenario design makes too little use of its unique mechanic which, in itself, doesn’t always work the way you’d expect it to. Bloody Days also fails to really capture the feel of the movie on which it’s based, presenting iconic characters as cheap knock offs that spout their signature lines at odd moments like pull-string toys. While the shooting can be fun and challenging, this one’s definitely not worth losing an ear over.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a top-down shooter that excels at the minimum. The replayability may be lacking, but it's definitely worth at least one playthrough.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a confused game. The license seems wasted, since the game fails to use its source material in a meaningful way. Ignore the license, and what you get is a top-down shooter that favors precision over bullet spray but adds a badly implemented time-rewind mechanic that squanders any potential it may have had. A few people can get some enjoyment out Bloody Days, but many will only need a quick glance to realize that this just isn't going to work out.

A top-down tactical-action strategy game based on the Tarantino's film, but doesn't work as a videogame homage.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a game with sky high potential that is crushed by its lazy execution.

Reservoir Dogs is a movie that succeeds on its attitude and storytelling. Without any of those elements making it into Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days, the attempts to remind me of the film became an annoyance, a reminder that I could be doing something better with my time. But even without the Reservoir Dogs branding, Bloody Days doesn’t come close to succeeding. The time rewind mechanic could have made for a unique experience, but it’s squandered on a mediocre, forgettable shoot-’em-up.

If the game was meant to be a tribute to the 25th anniversary of the film, little of it will be found. As a game of robberies, the rewind mechanics are interesting, but they do not work well enough to be satisfactory.

There are good ideas at work in Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days, but it’s a shame that one of the most intense and shocking indie movies ever made has spawned a game that’s neither. At its best, it’s a tight, engaging twin-stick shooter with an element of strategy and a cool rewind mechanic, but it never manages to be anything more than that.

It's pretty clear that we won't see a game truly worthy of the Tarantino's masterpiece. Unfortunately, the biggest crime committed by Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days are not the heists, but being dull and lackadaisical.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days gives birth to a great idea but offers nothing more. Despite the interesting rewind mechanics, this is a boring game, confusing and very repetitive.

Although it has some interesting ideas, but the execution isn't that good. It's may feature, the rewinding mechanic, doesn't really work as it should, and it lacks other accomplishments to make up for it.

As a fan of twinstick-action as well as Tarantino movies I was looking forward to Bloody Days. But while the dualstick heists are mediocre at best, as an enhancement, addition or homage to the modern cult classic this doesn’t work at all.

Even though Bloody Days tries to walk the walk and talk the talk, ultimately it feels less like a creative homage to a cult film classic and more like a shallow imitation with a hint of Tarantino flair.

Somewhere, buried deep in the design document for Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days was the idea for a decent game. The time rewinding mechanic, to its credit, does not feel gimmicky, as if it were tacked on to give the game a defining feature. Unfortunately, it isn't worth nearly the amount of frustration that it brings. Between its misuse of a license and its joyless, repetitive gameplay, there is little in this game that provides any entertainment value. Like most failed movie games, if you want the genuine experience, you are better off simply watching the movie.

Aside from the Reservoir Dogs name in the title and the colorfully named characters, Bloody Days shares almost nothing in common with its namesake. With its rewind mechanic, you can see the potential for an exhilarating top-down, twin-stick shooter, but this never comes to pass. The game is easily exploitable and produces frustration far too often to become even the slightest bit interesting. Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days devolves to a banal experience that's all bark and no bite.

The only reason I don’t regret spending a couple of hours with Bloody Days is that it gave me an excuse to watch Tarantino’s movie again. [09/2017, p.52]

While it may superficially retread a similarly desensitised violence found in the original film, little else could be compared from one to the other. In fact, Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is better an example of Lionsgate’s misuse of the original property, shelling it out every so often for some quick cash here-and-there.

Reservoir Dogs is a classic movie that deserves a better homage than Bloody Days for its 25th anniversary. The only equivalent would be if your dog died and it got replaced with a turtle. This was not an enjoyable experience and feels like an even sloppier cash-in on a movie franchise than the latest Ghostbusters game did. At least that had some depth. On paper, the idea of a Reservoir Dogs game coupled with what Big Star Games is pitching would warrant a purchase, but the annoying Time Rewind feature and complete lack of connectivity to the actual movie makes this feel like a trip to the dentist. Although at least with that you’d come out with clean teeth.

All of it is just awful, and if it wasn’t for the name the game would’ve passed by completely without notice. So in that sense the use of the license served its purpose, because if this hadn’t been called Reservoir Dogs we wouldn’t have known to warn you about it. Although it has inspired us to go and watch the film again, so there is that in its favour…