Bizarre Creations has made a conscious effort to keep the red stuff out of its next-gen shooter The Club, the developer told VG247 today, and instead concentrated on a "Hollywood" style to convey action in the game.

"I don’t agree that the game is super-violent," said Ben Ward, community and web boss at the Liverpool-based outfit. "We’ve made a concerted effort to minimize the level of gore in the game. You won’t see massive amounts of blood or guts when you shoot people. We’ve tried to use the ragdoll system to give feedback to the player rather than a huge cloud of red goo."

Ward added, "However, fundamentally the game is still about shooting lots of people. We’ve handled this in a similar way to Hollywood action movies – it’s not gratuitous or sadistic in the way it does things. Primarily the game is a gameplay-driven skill-based title, and we are hoping that anti-videogame groups will see this shine through."

The Club is a third-person shooter in which players clear levels using combos, headshots and the like for maximum points. Published by Sega, the game appears to have undergone a little rejigging in terms of release dates: Ward told us console versions - for Xbox 360 and PS3 - are releasing in Europe tomorrow, with a European PC version coming out on February 22. All three SKUs hit the US simultaneously on February 19.

The combination of old school skill and next-gen power makes this a hit, reckons Ward, so definitely give the demo a shot (no pun intended). Take a look at it running here.

"You’ll enjoy The Club if you’ve been waiting for that next-gen game which revisits that old-school competitive gameplay you used to love," said Ward. The game is all about competing with friends for the highest score possible, and showing off your skills whilst doing it. It’s something that’s fairly unique in the shooter genre at the moment, and something we really believe in."

Find all of Ben's answers to our questions after the link.

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