"Why am I Mr. Pink?"

I don't know what it is, but I can always find myself going back to certain movies and watching them over and over without getting even tired of them. Clerks, for instance. Or maybe the first three Star Wars movies. And then there's Reservoir Dogs, the 1992 debut of a young up-and-coming director named Quentin Tarantino. Instead of taking the easy way out with a slick little heist caper, Dogs goes ultra-violent, with five guys caught in the middle of a situation gone horribly wrong. Bloodshed and chaos ensue, as the men try to figure out all the answers as to how this happened. The movie was not only a milestone for its brutality, but also its savvy dialogue, which only got better with each of the films Tarantino worked on.

Now the classic is being revisited in video game form. It shouldn't be of any surprise, since most classic films are being revised as current game releases. EA's The Godfather was released last year, and Vivendi is putting together a game based on the classic crime saga Scarface. But Eidos and Volatile Games look to be taking a different approach with Reservoir Dogs. Instead of just following the basic content from the film and its events, they're forming some back story around it to fill in some of the gaps that left a few questions.

For instance, how did the Dogs escape from the police during the heist? How was Mr. Blonde able to get back into the warehouse with Marvin? Where are the diamonds? And what in the hell happened to Mr. Pink, Mr. Blue, and Mr. Brown? Are they still alive? The structure for this game follows each of the characters through the heist, with your actions determining their fates. It works in a non-chronological order, meaning that different characters are switched to constantly. It almost works like a team-based effort, with one's actions affecting the other and the course of the heist, as well as those who might stand in your way. There's other tasks to complete in the game as well, such as finding the "rat" who informed on you to the police to begin with.

What's unique about the approach taken in Reservoir Dogs is that you have a rating system that actually helps judge your morale. If you make too many sadistic choices or wipe out a bunch of innocents over the course of the heist, you could find yourself graded as a psychopath and given a very bad rating level. However, if you follow the steps as indicated, you're given a higher rating. Of course, with a game like Reservoir Dogs, you might just be tempted to take the "bad guy" route and see how deep you get into trouble. This is probably why the game's taking so much heat overseas, with people trying to get it banned and all.

The game is separated over ten third-person shooting stages and six driving stages, all of which involve a great deal of intensity as you move closer and closer to each individual goal. You'll be fired upon quite heavily, resulting in you having to use techniques in order to survive. This includes such criminal acts as manipulation and hostage-taking, a technique where you set an innocent person right in front of you to avoid getting fired upon. This is where negotiation comes into play, as well as being able to use them as a human shield in a pinch. You can even injure them to show the cops that you mean business, without killing them. Hostages can also perform individual actions for you, including unlocking doors and distracting certain parties while you slip away.

Police opposition also comes into play, which allows you to use great crowd control techniques. By managing individual adrenaline levels in each player, you're able to use these techniques to avoid a full-scale riot from going against you, or perhaps even turning public folks loose to distract the police. Along with the hostage-taking system, this comes together for a fitting play style that strays from the typical third-person shooting glut on the market. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds in the final game.