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Graphics
Since The Club is a console conversion, I was surprised to find the number of graphics options available to tweak. As well as the usual suspects such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, it's also possible to set detail levels for textures, shaders, shadows, effects and model quality.Each graphical option comes with three levels: Low, Medium and High, or in the case of shadows, Off, Low and High.
To be honest though, as the screenshots show, there's not a huge amount of difference between the Low and High settings. Below we've got images of what the game looks like with all the settings on High, Medium and Low and, sure, the character models are less detailed, and the wall and machinery textures have less clarity, but it's not enough to make you tear your eyes out at the sheer ugliness of it all.
The textures seem to be the most noticeable place where the graphics suffer on lower levels and the game is certainly a bit of a blur-fest when you've got everything turned down, but the fact that the gameplay remains so fluid and that the game's focus is more on speed than stopping to admire the grass means that it isn't really a big deal. When you're dodging bullets in a frantic race to get to the exit before a timebomb strapped to your chest goes off then I think you'll find the detail on the walls is a distant concern.
All graphics on High (left), Medium (centre) and Low (right)
One setting that is worth looking at in isolation though is the post-processing setting, which has a frankly massive effect on the game’s graphical fidelity.
Post-processing adds another level of detail to graphics such as lighting and motion effects. Post-processing comes with four settings to choose from; Off, Low, High and Ultra. Screenshots of each setting can be found below.
Turning off post processing is not recommended, even if you have a slow system – it results in a picture that is dingier than a Doom level and with a lighting system that seems to have packed up and gone on holiday. The Low setting has lighting effects but no motion blur, while the High setting has both lighting and motion blur effects.
Post-processing on Ultra (moving, far left), High (moving, left), Low (still, right) and Off (still, far right)
Then we come to the "Ultra" setting. I think this must have been included as part of a drunken bet. You can imagine the developers sitting at their desks, egging each other on to see how far they can take motion blur. Well, let me tell you, they've taken it further than they needed to.
If you suffer from motion sickness, leave this setting well alone. Just a little light touch of the mouse sends your screen into a blurred frenzy, and using it in the game is enough to give even the hardiest of people a queasy feeling. Still, it's there if you want it. Don't say you weren't warned.
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