The Outfit Xbox 360 Review

The Outfit was stamped with promise from the offset, boasting unserious storytelling, larger than life characters, and a cocktail of action and strategy. It certainly sounds good on paper, but the end product is an unfortunate and unattractive one that – although fun – doesn’t manage to live up to its true potential and looks like the dogs regurgitated dinner (perhaps that’s a little harsh, although this is the 360).

The games major talking and selling point is that of the Destruction on Demand feature, a simple feature, which allows you to get all sorts of helpful war tools dropped into the war zone. The controls for bringing this in to play are intuitive, allowing you to summon a wheel menu on to the screen with the Y button and simply choosing such things as machine gun turrets, various vehicles (jeeps, tanks etc), troop support and anti aircraft guns from it, which are then dropped from the sky as if they were presents from the almighty one.

“Destruction on Demand” may suggest that anything on the wheel menu can be called in at anytime, although this simply isn’t the case. You must earn the opportunity by accumulating field unit points, which are awarded to you upon capturing strategic areas of the map and gunning down Nazi scum. You’ll often find yourself with an ample number of points, which is one of the culprits that makes the game that little bit too easy (unlimited respawns is the other).

In fact there were times where we felt that Destruction on Demand was a cheap feature, which could be abused too often, although to continue thinking that would be to deny the game its sense of gung ho fun. There’s freedom to do your own thing, but most will probably settle for scattering a few machine guns and bringing vehicles and air strikes into play for the more difficult of sections. A nice tactical touch is the ability to call in air strikes and stronger weapons and vehicles upon taking control of radio towers, armouries and motor pools respectively. The opportunity to select a different character each time you die is also a welcome one, and it’s in this situation where you may decide to alter your strategy if current methods just aren’t working out.

In many areas it’s as if the single player campaign was designed around the multiplayer mode, such are the similar structures of the two options, sharing elements such as unlimited respawns, character choice and securing strategic areas of the map. There’s little differences between the two options, although multiplayer is probably where the game is at its best, offering three different modes for 2 players offline and up to 8 players through system link and online.

Destruction on Demand may sound like one of those features that some hardcore gamers will turn their noses up at, and as the action is chaotic and more brainless than previously suggested, this isn’t too far from the truth. Whilst not perfect, The Outfit is still good fun and deserving of a rental at the very least.

7/10