This all sounds pretty good, but there are some problems in execution. As mentioned, the missions are very linear. They also get rather repetitive. More gets thrown at you and you’ll meet up with tougher units, but it does not really require a change in play style. There are way too many places you can’t go. If a wall falls after being hit you’d expect that you could go in a building and take cover, right? Not generally true here. There are all sorts of restrictions on movement that keep you from ever really strategically moving your units. Weapons have weird quirks. A direct hit on a man with a cannon shell will turn him into mincemeat. But an explosion from the same shell a foot from his feet might knock him down but he’ll just get up and keep coming at you. Weapons never run out of ammunition, but they overheat way too quickly and the heavier ones have odiously low rates of fire. Vehicle maneuvering is extremely problematic. Most unforgivable is hit detection problems that will have you ready to throw your controller at the on-screen target when your well-lined-up headshot from the best sniper rifle the game offers fails to even register with a bad guy.

In addition to the single-player mode there are a good variety of multiplayer options, though number of players is limited. Two can play with one system and TV. Via System Link and Live the maximum number of players is eight. That is a bit low, but it must be taken into consideration that in multiplayer each person is still leading a squad of four around the battlefield and emplacing gun units, so with eight human leaders it really gets crowded and chaotic. The Outfit is actually one of those rare games which its play mechanic lends itself better to the multiplayer experience. I did have some problems on Xbox Live with lag, but I can’t be sure if the newness of the game was attracting a lot of players and bogging down the servers or if there was some other problem.

Visually the game is very uneven. Many textures hardly look next-gen quality. The characters are rather clunky in appearance, especially in the cut scenes. It looks about like an above-average Xbox game. The sound is pretty good, though it never really rattles your teeth. Music is only okay with mostly marshal-type stuff. Voice acting is so-so with some real bargain basement French and German accents and stereotypical tough-guy performances for the game’s heroes.

Playing The Outfit through in the single-player campaign was a bit of a letdown. There are enough problems in the games execution to not fully endorse it. On the other hand it does sport some interesting play mechanics that I’d really like to see explored further in other games. It also lends itself well to multiplayer gaming. In the end analysis I think I had enough fun with it to give it a "B-" score. I argued bitterly with myself about dropping that into the "C" range, but there was enough shining through the other problems to give it above an average score on the potential it shows.