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"[GAME] Bodycount"

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Mon 09/01/12 at 17:23
Regular
"And in last place.."
Posts: 2,054
There is an abundance of first person shooters for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. It’s going to take something rather special to knock the big hitters like Call of Duty and Battflield from their lofty perches. And Bodycount proves this with relative ease. With disappointing review scores, the game went on to sell relatively poorly and ultimately the development studio was closed down.

It’s hard to know what the thinking was behind this one. There isn’t a single aspect of the game which stands out and only the most disillusioned at Codemasters would have thought this could cause a ripple in the first person shooter market. But to be fair to the game, I’ve played worse and perhaps it’s now rather low price tag will enable it to gain a few fans.

As with a lot of first person shooters, the story is a bit of a non-event. You are a nameless operative, referred to as simple The Asset. Your employer is a group called The Network, a rather fittingly uninspired name for the organisation. The Network operate under the slogan, ‘Modern problems require modern solutions’. These modern solutions tend to involve you being sent in alone to warzones to wipe out everyone. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly modern about the implementation or the solution but aren’t story lines in these games just an excuse to fire a few rounds anyway?

With each war torn location you visit and mission you complete, The Network gradually will find that a group known as Target have some meddling involvement and they and their attacking data centres become a focus.

With visiting locations of wars, it can initially be a little confusing. You’ll find yourself sitting back and watching the gun battle. Your destination is marked on screen but it seems almost disrespectful to intrude. If you are the cautious type then you can probably get to your destination without interrupting the battles but Bodycount doesn’t want you doing that and as an employer who doesn’t discriminate, The Network are happy for you to kill anyone and everyone regardless of what side they are on.

Whilst it may feel like you should go quietly and undetected, the guns blazing approach is always more fun. And with making enemies on both sides of the war and the Target people, things can get quite chaotic at times and you can find yourself being shot at from all angles.

Bodycount wants you to kill everyone with a certain pizzazz. There are explosive barrels just begging to be shot, there is destructible scenery to blast though, plenty of grenades to toss and landmines to lay. When you perform some of the more OTT actions then you’ll find icons littering the ground. Performing actions like these within quick succession will increase your score multiplier but perform a traditional, run of the mill kill and the multiplier resets. At the end of each level you will be given a score. It somehow just doesn’t all fit together. The game tries to have a serious story behind it but at the same times wants you to be extravagant in your execution. Personally I totally ignored the scoring aspect.

The destruction aspect seems to be the highlight of the game. Why wait for your enemy to come out from behind that door when you can just shred the door with your machine gun fire. You can’t escape the feeling it has been done before and it still has that learning curve when you have to appreciate what surfaces are indestructible.

The melee knife kill is simply awful and rarely seems to actually work. Perhaps the Asset closes his eyes at this moment and hopes for the best. This is an approach that some of the AI uses, they are not a clever bunch at times but if you are going for kill score then you don’t really want some wise AI evading your fancy moves.

The use of special powers becomes available as the game progresses. You’ll have access to explosive bullets and temporary invulnerability. These are the useful powers, the other you wouldn’t notice if they didn't exist.

The levels and locations are decent with a good variety to them and wouldn’t look out of place on a better shooter. The Target data centres add a futuristic feel to the levels which is a nice contrast to the other locations. Repeated visits see them lose the appeal somewhat though.

Bodycount plays well enough but it never comes close to excelling in any area. The weapons are all standard, they do the job but there is nothing different or special to them. The scoring system and destructive scenery doesn’t add the fun factor they were probably meant to and I don’t really feel the scoring system fits in at all. The first few missions became a chore but I found it livened up in the 2nd location and maintained that pace. Other than a couple of difficulty spikes, I found it to be a decent and competent enough shooter. It’s a completely forgettable experience but there are worse games out there and new copies can be picked up for a very low price.

6

There is a multiplayer mode but I can’t comment on it since I’ve not managed to find any other players.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Mon 09/01/12 at 17:23
Regular
"And in last place.."
Posts: 2,054
There is an abundance of first person shooters for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. It’s going to take something rather special to knock the big hitters like Call of Duty and Battflield from their lofty perches. And Bodycount proves this with relative ease. With disappointing review scores, the game went on to sell relatively poorly and ultimately the development studio was closed down.

It’s hard to know what the thinking was behind this one. There isn’t a single aspect of the game which stands out and only the most disillusioned at Codemasters would have thought this could cause a ripple in the first person shooter market. But to be fair to the game, I’ve played worse and perhaps it’s now rather low price tag will enable it to gain a few fans.

As with a lot of first person shooters, the story is a bit of a non-event. You are a nameless operative, referred to as simple The Asset. Your employer is a group called The Network, a rather fittingly uninspired name for the organisation. The Network operate under the slogan, ‘Modern problems require modern solutions’. These modern solutions tend to involve you being sent in alone to warzones to wipe out everyone. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly modern about the implementation or the solution but aren’t story lines in these games just an excuse to fire a few rounds anyway?

With each war torn location you visit and mission you complete, The Network gradually will find that a group known as Target have some meddling involvement and they and their attacking data centres become a focus.

With visiting locations of wars, it can initially be a little confusing. You’ll find yourself sitting back and watching the gun battle. Your destination is marked on screen but it seems almost disrespectful to intrude. If you are the cautious type then you can probably get to your destination without interrupting the battles but Bodycount doesn’t want you doing that and as an employer who doesn’t discriminate, The Network are happy for you to kill anyone and everyone regardless of what side they are on.

Whilst it may feel like you should go quietly and undetected, the guns blazing approach is always more fun. And with making enemies on both sides of the war and the Target people, things can get quite chaotic at times and you can find yourself being shot at from all angles.

Bodycount wants you to kill everyone with a certain pizzazz. There are explosive barrels just begging to be shot, there is destructible scenery to blast though, plenty of grenades to toss and landmines to lay. When you perform some of the more OTT actions then you’ll find icons littering the ground. Performing actions like these within quick succession will increase your score multiplier but perform a traditional, run of the mill kill and the multiplier resets. At the end of each level you will be given a score. It somehow just doesn’t all fit together. The game tries to have a serious story behind it but at the same times wants you to be extravagant in your execution. Personally I totally ignored the scoring aspect.

The destruction aspect seems to be the highlight of the game. Why wait for your enemy to come out from behind that door when you can just shred the door with your machine gun fire. You can’t escape the feeling it has been done before and it still has that learning curve when you have to appreciate what surfaces are indestructible.

The melee knife kill is simply awful and rarely seems to actually work. Perhaps the Asset closes his eyes at this moment and hopes for the best. This is an approach that some of the AI uses, they are not a clever bunch at times but if you are going for kill score then you don’t really want some wise AI evading your fancy moves.

The use of special powers becomes available as the game progresses. You’ll have access to explosive bullets and temporary invulnerability. These are the useful powers, the other you wouldn’t notice if they didn't exist.

The levels and locations are decent with a good variety to them and wouldn’t look out of place on a better shooter. The Target data centres add a futuristic feel to the levels which is a nice contrast to the other locations. Repeated visits see them lose the appeal somewhat though.

Bodycount plays well enough but it never comes close to excelling in any area. The weapons are all standard, they do the job but there is nothing different or special to them. The scoring system and destructive scenery doesn’t add the fun factor they were probably meant to and I don’t really feel the scoring system fits in at all. The first few missions became a chore but I found it livened up in the 2nd location and maintained that pace. Other than a couple of difficulty spikes, I found it to be a decent and competent enough shooter. It’s a completely forgettable experience but there are worse games out there and new copies can be picked up for a very low price.

6

There is a multiplayer mode but I can’t comment on it since I’ve not managed to find any other players.

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