The Bouncer (Videogame)

***The Bouncer (JP title バウンサー)*** is a 2000 beat 'em up fighting game for the Sony PlayStation 2. It was co-developed by Squaresoft (now Square Enix) and DreamFactory. The game features character designs by Tetsuya Nomura and music by Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi.

The game marks Squaresoft's first release on the PlayStation 2. The game was known for its production values, introducing a juggling physics engine and graphical techniques such as bloom lighting and depth-of-field effects. It also had different moves using the pressure on the PS2 controller buttons to affect move inputs, something that was not often seen in PS2 games released after.

## Plot

From Dog Street, you can see the Mikado Building, the headquarters of the multinational Mikado Group corporation. You can expect to find many bouncers in the bars in this part of town.

Sion, Kou, and Volt are bouncers who defend their bar, Fate, from any hooligan that tries to invade their territory.

Dominique, a young girl Sion found lying in the middle of town, eventually becomes a mascot for the bar Fate, though nobody really knows where she comes from.

For a while, everything is peaceful and boring.

Suddenly, however, Dominique is kidnapped by Mikado's Special Forces.

What is Mikado up to?

What is Dominique's secret?

Can Sion and the other bouncers save Dominique?

The bouncers' longest night is just about to begin!

## Characters

* **Sion Barzahd** - An apprentice novice bouncer of FATE about to reach the first year of his career.
* **Kou Leifoh** - A newly hired but experienced bouncer who joined not too recently into the FATE staff.
* **Volt Krueger** - Visually imposing but just a bouncer for FATE who has a past with the Mikado Group.
* **Dominique Cross** - The innocent mascot of FATE. Mysteriously hunted by the Mikado Group.
* **Dauragon C. Mikado** - The young and ruthlessly ambitious CEO of the Mikado Group.
* **Echidna** - A Mikado Group security supervisor who has a history with Volt.
* **Kaldea Orchid** - An old friend of Sion's who allegedly died in an accident.
* **Leann Caldwell** - Kou's supervisor and a valuable source of information about the Mikado Group.
* **Mugetsu** - Dominique's kidnapper and head of Mikado Special Forces Unit.
* **PD-4** - A bionoid developed by the Mikado Group.
* **Wong Leung** - An old man who raised Sion and taught him martial arts.

## Mode Selection

* Story Mode - The main campaign where you play Sion, Volt and Kou's journey to rescue Dominique from Mikado.
* Versus Mode - An extra mode in The Bouncer which offers up to 4-Player multiplayer competitive combat.
* Survival Mode - An extra mode in The Bouncer which offers 10 stages full of opponents to defeat.
* Options Mode - Change various settings including the language of the voice acting.

## Innovations and Legacy

Like earlier DreamFactory & Squaresoft collaborations, such as *Tobal*, *Bushido Blade*, and *Ehrgeiz*, *The Bouncer* used novel design and presentation ideas, but its experimental nature divided critics. Some of its features became widely-used among the industry. Despite the game not having sequels or much media or merchandise released afterwards, it did get referenced in Kingdom Hearts 2, another game developed by Square Enix. A reference to Dog Street was on a character named Pence's shirt, and Nomura had also been the character designer for him as well.

### Graphics Engine and Shading Filters

The game's presentation and production values were considered groundbreaking, particularly due to its introduction of innovative shading techniques, most notably what would later be called a light bloom effect, which critics at the time described as a "glowing" effect that created "a unique gloss that's never been used before with such success." This effect was used in order to create a more cinematic movie-like look, as well as to compensate for the PS2's lack of anti-aliasing. *The Bouncer* also introduced a depth-of-field (DOF) effect, blurring the background or foreground during cinematic cutscenes. Both the bloom and DOF effects are now widely used in modern action games, and more generally, *The Bouncer* was a precursor to modern shaders.

According to director Takashi Tokita in a 2001 interview: "No matter how many polygons you use or how realistic the textures are, without filters and lighting, CG pictures will be of a quality lower than that of a figurine. In order to create atmosphere, we spent much time on filters and lighting. We adjusted each scene in detail with an editor that conducted parameter adjustments on the actual hardware."

### Juggling Physics Engine

*The Bouncer* also introduced a new juggling type of ragdoll physics engine to third-person action games, allowing the player to launch enemies into the air with an attack and keep them suspended by striking them repeatedly. Enemies can also be thrown or otherwise knocked into one another, causing all of them to take damage at once.

### RPG Elements and Cinematic Storytelling

While Dream Factory/Squaresoft had previously introduced RPG elements to the beat 'em up genre with the *Tobal* series, *The Bouncer* took a stronger emphasis on character development systems and branching storylines. Before every encounter the player would have the option to choose one of the 3 main protagonists. Depending on their choice, the player would see unique aspects of that scene from the chosen characters perspective.

## Reception

Aggregate score

Review scores
 *Play* | 76%

*The Bouncer* received "mixed or average reviews," and holds an aggregate score of 66 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty reviews.

With the consideration of its high-profile development team, as well as the fact that it was a front-runner PlayStation 2 release, *The Bouncer* was highly anticipated. However, the game was perceived as a disappointment by many, and was largely seen as mediocre. Numerous aspects from the E3 trailer, such as destructible scenery, were removed in the final game, possibly in order to get the game out in time to be among the first batch of PlayStation 2 titles. Much of the criticism, however, fell on the gameplay. IGN found the controls average and the camera angles to become a major issue in the later portions of the game, where the player is confined to tight spaces. The game was also seen as having an excessive amount of cutscenes and load screens. GameCritics' Brad Galloway, for example, argued actual gameplay constitutes less than one third of the game's length.

IGN's Douglass C. Perry reviewed an import version of the game prior to its release in North America, and was disappointed with the lack of depth, but impressed by other aspects. He praised the graphics, character design and CGI cutscenes. He was also impressed with the "glowing" effect used throughout the game; "DreamFactory employs a *Playboy*-like filter that smoothes out every single bit on the screen. The effect is consistent throughout the game, and rids the PS2 of aliasing or flickering, but also provides a unique gloss that's never been used before with such success." He concluded that, "despite the disappointments, I am absolutely having a great time with The Bouncer." In his official review of the game upon its North American release, Perry scored it 7 out of 10, writing "The game is a letdown, but not a catastrophic one. [...] It's a good game, not a great one, and it's worth a look." He referred to Story Mode as a "mixed bag of good ideas executed ineffectively," although he praised multiplayer mode. He concluded "*The Bouncer* is not the next messiah, it's not the next wave of fighting, and frankly, it's not the paradigm for anything really new, except perhaps incredible-looking graphics. These things said, *The Bouncer* is a decent game. It's not horrible, it's not brilliant. It's pretty average."

In his look at the import version, GameSpot's Miguel Lopez called the game "little more than a glorified and highly cinematic version of *Final Fight* using dated *Tobal* animations." He called the graphics "quite competent," but was highly critical of the game's length, estimating a player could play through the entire game in 45 minutes or less, if they skipped cutscenes. In his full review, Jeff Gerstmann scored the game 6.7 out of 10. Of the graphics, he said "Everything, from the characters to the backgrounds, looks absolutely incredible." He concluded "*The Bouncer* makes a great showpiece for the PlayStation 2. It looks and sounds incredible. However, the ease and extremely short length of the game, matched with other problems like horrific camera angles and lack of a multiplayer story mode, make *The Bouncer* fair, at best." It was a runner-up for *GameSpot*'s annual "Most Disappointing Game" award among console games, which went to *Luigi's Mansion*.

Game Revolution's Brian Gee awarded the game a C+. He wrote, "It's easy to tell what the developers focused on, because *The Bouncer* is obviously one of the best-looking games on a console to date. Near flawless animations and picture perfect visuals make it a great choice to show off the sleek Sony super machine to your friends. Once the game begins, though, *The Bouncer* sheds it's [sic] pretty boy image and gets down and dirty." He was critical of the controls and the absence of a lock-on feature. Like other critics, he also had problems with the camera and the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay. He concluded "Though many will undoubtedly be disappointed by *The Bouncer*'s inability to live up to the hype, others will find a fancy beat 'em up to pass a few hours. Its flashy graphics are at least worth taking a look at, but its many problems just might keep it from a place in the collection."

*GamePro* were more impressed, scoring the game 4.5 out 5, and writing "*The Bouncer* slickly combines copious amounts of hard-hitting moves with a stellar story line all in a visually stunning world."

Blake Fischer reviewed the PlayStation 2 version of the game for *Next Generation*, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "*The Bouncer* manages to look good, but don't let that fool you into thinking that it's very fun."

## External Links

* Official North American site
* Official European site