Bodycount Review

Bodycount is a troubled soul, like one of those awkward school mates that you know exists but doesn't know what crowd of friends to fit in with. You can talk to them quite easily but you don't want to admit to the rest of your friends that you have done in-case they outcast you from the group.

The game kicks off with a wholly uninspired storyline with you, an unnamed soldier working for "The Agency", having to resolve trouble spots around the world. First off you get dumped in the middle of fictional Africa in the province of Tesanga which is undergoing a civil war. From here you're John J. Rambo'ing the local populace, gunning down everyone you see with little consequence. It's really hard to understand what purpose you actually serve in this conflict when you're shooting both sides in this war.

The actual combat seems robust enough: the weapons you use feel like they have some meaning to them with sounds to match. It really feels like when you shoot something, you're making an impact. It's the other elements which let this game down hugely. First off is the HUD marking all the drops like you've shot open a packet of Skittles, then when you pick these up it sounds like Pac-Man just hit the jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas. It's simply ridiculous.

These pick-ups are referred to as Intel, once picked up these build up a special ability meter. The abilities unlock over time and range from limited invulnerability to explosive rounds; however the abilities did not really have much of an impact for my playthrough and just resorted to using the good ol' headshot to put people down. You will also encounter 'boss' style enemies which take huge amounts of punishment to take down and generally you'll be running and hiding from them taking pot shots to kill them.

There seems to be some laziness within the development team with the inclusion of Skill Shots. Yep, the very feature we saw in Bulletstorm. However Bodycount seems to have lost their sense of inspiration as the Skill Shots seem to rack up by just shooting people, rather than looking for inventive ways of killing people. I felt the most inventive skill shot was the shredder which is simply shoot someone through a wall.

The term shredding will be used a lot in this game and it is simply just carve your way through a wall or door using bullets as your knife. It's a nice novelty the first couple of times you use this but it just becomes grating the further into the game you progress. The controls of the game take a little getting used to as well. Utilising the analogue buttons on the pad, pressing the left shoulder button half way allows you to use the guns iron sights but still allowing you to move. Fully depressing the button will lock you into place, then moving the left stick will make you duck and weave behind cover.

This is a nice idea in theory, but the actual practice of this in Bodycount is a shambles. You'll be running more often than you'll be standing still so it's a wasted option, which is a shame as it has the potential to be a useful feature. When things do get up close and personal you do have a melee option but it's more of a flail than a valid component of your arsenal.

There are more missed opportunities in the level design themselves, most of what you encounter are open and semi sandbox, allowing you to wander. However you're still limited on the routes you can take and generally have to go to a single location. It would have been nice to have an objective and just let loose on your own volition through the streets and buildings to complete the task.

The visuals are average at best. While there is some nice scenery, the play models seem like they were knocked up in about a day and I did experience some frame rate issues but they were few and far between. We do have a couple of saving graces for the game though. Firstly the game does feature two player co-operative play so you and a friend can go bat sh*t crazy and rain bullet hell on the denizen's of the game, facing off against wave after wave of enemies. Secondly the multiplayer isn't too shabby.

While limited to Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch for up-to 12 players, the action is quite frantic in the wide open city streets where there is plenty of space to run and gun. When the gameplay switches to narrow enclosed corridors, shredding is the key here as you pump round after round through the crumbling walls to kill your enemy.

Overall Bodycount is a huge missed opportunity. It has elements which are nice but the overall package seems to have let this down quite substantially.