A visionary film that propelled a director from obscurity to a household name. A plot setup that involved guns, treachery, and annoyingly stilted dialogue that seeped into other films of the era. Intensely quotable and ludicrously well-known, Reservoir Dogs is one of those films that everyone's seen and knows at least one line from... But then you ask yourself, "would this make a good game?"

Admittedly, I've got a weak spot for licensed games, doubly so for those that revise the storyline to add in parts that were missing. If you recall back to The Warriors, you would see a game that took all of the good things about the original film, and amplified them. In this case, the strongest part of Reservoir Dogs was the character interaction.

As you'd expect, the game takes a wildly divergent path to filling the holes in the original story. Well, if one were to fill the holes with things that don't quite fit. If Reservoir Dogs were to be completely filled out, it's hard to say that the day of the heist would last more than a few hours--most of which would be spent inside of the warehouse. In this, players are treated to the initiation of Mr. Orange (good) and several action scenes that take place between the heist and the warehouse (bad).

To put this in perspective, the film featured the characters making a quick and dirty getaway. In video game form, you're put to the task of running through alleys, jumping across rooftops, and fighting dozens of cops. In this whole tour of duty, characters also have access to a bullet time effect akin to Red Steel's focus: you stop time, cue up bullets to hit targets, and when time restarts the other guy is filled with holes. It's not that this whole showing is bad, mind you, it's just that it seems to have no respect at all for the source material.

Moreso, none of the actors other than Michael Madsen gave the go-ahead to use their voices or likenesses. With this, players are treated to decent soundalikes with amazingly wrong avatars. Mister Pink no longer sports the close-cropped goatee, instead a rather William H. Macy looking face with a moustache that would only feel at home in a 70's porno.

Then...then you get past the shooting parts and realize that a raucous driving minigame shows up here and there in the game. You have to drive as fast as possible, leaving death and destruction in your wake. It's as reckless as a chase in The Blues Brothers, but without the fun... Or the invincible car. While you're doing this, the characters banter endlessly. Well, mostly Madsen, who's more talkative in this game than the film by far.

After every mission, the game rates you upon a few rubricks that are never fully explained. However, it can be broken into one simple formula: the more damage you deal, the less professional your rating is. Depending on your professional standing, the storyline and ending change a bit. It's a nice idea, but never really fleshed out all that well.

If Reservoir Dogs were to be seen as a standalone game, I really couldn't fault it. The gameplay is pretty solid, and could work pretty well with another game. As it stands, Reservoir Dogs is just another average licensed game that decided to disrespect the wrong film.