Bodycount is a non-stop frenzy of bullets from start to end - too bad sheer laziness on the part of the developers makes it one of the worst games out this year.
Gamers play an agent of The Network, sent into a generic West African country to investigate a brutal civil war. They start off by killing every one in sight - obviously, the only known way of stopping a civil war - and quickly discover the presence of Target, a shadowy agency behind the war.
However, the plot was vague and hard to follow. Even at the end, I didn't understand what Target was doing in Africa, or even why it wanted to kill me.
The game trailers focus on the gamer's ability to hold down the trigger button and tear through enemies and walls alike. But the experience of actually playing the game is very different: only a tiny percentage of the environment is destructible - unlike games such as Red Faction Armageddon.
Instead, the designers force gamers to play through one of three bland levels - rural Africa, China and futuristic star-base - that they revisit multiple times. It's as if they couldn't be bothered to design new levels.
Similarly, the variation in both weapons and enemies is abysmal. The generalisation of the enemies is also a tad racist - not all African mercenaries are dressed in traditional garb with war paint - I'm sure that in real life, they'd wear body armour; and not all Chinese baddies are shirtless, tattooed yakuza.
In summary:
Pros: Bullets galore
Cons: Short campaign, weak plot, boring gameplay dynamics, inconsistent checkpoints, no variation in guns, enemies or level design
Moment of the game: Watching the credits role
Score: 3/10
Achievement difficulty: 3/10 (offline achievements)
Time to completion: 4 hours
Price: R439
Contact: BT Games
The gameplay involves running from waypoint to waypoint, mostly to diffuse bombs or open doors. Elements of camping and defending a spot can be quite tense, but are completely overshadowed by weak game design. Checkpoint locations are inconsistent, varying between a few seconds and about 10 minutes of gameplay, and the in-game controls, in particular, the aiming, is counterintuitive.
An attempt at a skillshot system like Bulletstorm's is poorly executed because of low weapon variety, and adds nothing to the gameplay. Finally, the enemy, AI, is so daft that in the latter parts of the game, I was able to sprint between objects without once engaging in a firefight. It seems ironic that the easiest way to finish a game called 'Bodycount' is to not kill anyone at all.
There is some variation in the multiplayer with three different game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Horde. The servers were pretty barren and I only found two games at the time of reviewing. Unfortunately, the gameplay imbalances resulted in a very poor experience, and in no way does it match up to Gears of War or Modern Warfare.
Frankly I have nothing good to say about this game. I admit, holding down the trigger button and killing enemy after enemy is a little fun, but an unpolished title not even worthy of a downloadable Xbox Live release eliminates all that good. It's like the developers just didn't care enough to produce a halfway decent title.
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