The Bouncer (Japanese: バウンサー, Hepburn: Baunsā) is a 2000 beat 'em up video game for the PlayStation 2 developed by DreamFactory and published by Square.

It was released in Japan in December 2000, in North America by Square Electronic Arts in March 2001, and in Europe by Sony Computer Entertainment in June 2001.

The game was produced by Shinji Hashimoto, co-directed by Takashi Tokita and Seiichi Ishii, and features character designs by Tetsuya Nomura, and music by Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi.

The game is structured like a "playable action movie," with the plot unfolding differently depending on which character the player chooses for specific gameplay sequences.

[4] The game's combat uses ragdoll physics, which allows characters to be launched several feet into the air, making it possible to juggle enemies by striking them repeatedly.

The Bouncer is structured as a series of short gameplay segments interspersed with cinematic cutscenes that tell the game's story.

With the Active Character Selection (ACS) system, when a cutscene concludes, the player is given the choice to control one of the three protagonists and proceed onto the next gameplay segment.

Occasionally, one of the AI-controlled bouncers will do a taunt, prompting a button-press to activate a team attack ("Trinity Rush") which damages all enemies on screen.

These include Echidna, a supervisor who knows Volt; Kaldea, a former friend of Sion's turned through experimentation into a shapeshifter; and Mugetsu, a soldier driven insane by enhancement experiments.

The footage showed the three main characters, which at that time were two men and one woman, fighting a group of ninja in a café.

"[11] GameSpot were also very enthusiastic about the early footage from the game, writing "The Bouncer is arguably one of the strongest visual demonstrations of the PlayStation 2 hardware thus far.

[19] However, on September 1, IGN reported DreamFactory were having difficulty working with the PlayStation 2's hardware, and the game had been pushed back to January 2001.

On September 21, IGN published a roundtable interview with members of the development team; character designer Tetsuya Nomura, composers Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi, and co-director Takashi Tokita.

The developers outlined the gameplay mechanics, the branching story, the versus and survival modes, the music, the character design, and the challenges of working on the PlayStation 2 for the first time.

[24] The team also said the gameplay was partially derived from DreamFactory's Ehrgeiz and Tobal games, while graphically, the atmosphere was developed with the use of filters and lighting.

Takashi Tokita has commented that the lyrics of "Love Is the Gift", heard during the closing credits, signify the game's overall theme.

[31] The North American version, The Bouncer Original Video Game Soundtrack, is a single disc, 21-track album, published on March 26, 2001, by Tokyopop Soundtrax.

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.

[40] 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 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.

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.

Near flawless animations and picture perfect visuals make it a great choice to show off the sleek Sony super machine to your friends.

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.

"[36] 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.

"[35] 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.