The Outfit is a third-person shooter, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ for Xbox 360, set within war ravaged Europe during World War II. The game combines squad-based combat and easy to use strategic gameplay elements with cinematic interludes. The Outfit gives players the option to control three different squad leaders, each with their own specific skills and abilities. Via the squad leaders, players are able to control a squad of battle-forged soldiers on missions based in highly destructible battlefields. By engaging in combat with the enemy, players earn "Field Units" that can be used to order in "Destruction on Demand" to upgrade their arsenal, order in tanks and many other vehicles, build machine gun nests and anti-tank emplacements, or call for air or artillery strikes. The game includes 12 single-player missions and Cooperative missions, and it supports online play with Microsoft'sXbox Live service. The Outfit is designed to play in high-definition with Dolby Digitalsurround sound.
Plot
The plot starts off on a beach where the team goes over their overall objectives and then go to save a small town, only to find all of the citizens have been either killed or evacuated except a French priest. He points out that he is "still a man of God", and therefore would only provide help with his knowledge of the enemy. He also tells them that most the population was massacred in the village church by a Nazi like monster General Hans von Beck who answers only to Hitler. After defending a small village from a German counterattack, the priest is found missing and is discovered to be a German collaborator, after the resistance member gives a German soldier some "persuading". Meanwhile, two high-ranking officers within the German army quarrel over their duties, one being an SS commander and the other a Wehrmacht general. During a mission, the team raid a U-boat base to find where von Beck is, when successfully stealing an enigma machine they find von Beck was not responsible for the massacre but an SS commander Victor Morder. In a mission to a factory, Deuce is fatally wounded by the priest, but manages to take out all of the forces in the area including himself by throwing a lit cigar into an explosives cache. The remaining American heroes eventually corner the collaborating priest in a church in a town ironically similar to the village they first met the priest. Mac decides to spare his life to the mercy of Morder, but as he is leaving the church, the priest takes aim with a M1911 but is then shot and killed by Mac, who is holding Deuce's favorite revolver. The Americans form an alliance with the Wehrmacht general Hans von Beck during one of their later missions. With his help, the allied forces eventually arrive at the SS tower stronghold that the SS General Victor Morder is making his last stand. They capture one of the SS rail cannons and take down the tower with Morder inside. The ending shows the Wehrmacht general surrendering to the American forces formally. Mac is seen reunited with the French resistance woman who helped them along the way.
Reception
The game received "average" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one eight, two sevens, and one six, for a total of 28 out of 40. Maxim gave it a score of four stars out of five and said, "If modern war games aren't your style, try on this Nazi neutralizer. Realism is an afterthought in this outrageous squad-based shooter that encourages demolition over diplomacy." However, FHM gave it three stars out of five and called it "a WW2 shooter that lobs in some real-time strategy elements alongside the usual grenades. You and your squad of Marines go Nazi-hunting, and the more enemies you kill and bases you snatch, the more points you get." The Sydney Morning Herald similarly gave it three stars out of five, stating that "Variety is lacking, ensuring replay appeal is limited to the fun multiplayer modes only."
