Thursday 26 December 2013

Bodycount review




with everyone wanting complex first person shooters games like Bodycount where never going to do very well, but its a breath of fresh air in my mind with its roots firmly in the 'last gen'.
Having played the game through more than once I can safely say I wish more games where like this.
The main thing that stands out as not being the norm is that fact that you can not aim down the sights like in normal FPS, this is trying to get you closer to the enemies rather than sniping them from your comfort zone. When you do 'aim' however your rooted to the ground only able to lean, this is great for behind cover, [until that cover gets slowly blasted away] this can mean that you loose some of the momentum in a genuinely fast paced game. But, it just makes you more selective when you aim; The game's not about precision or minimal take-downs just spray your weapon.
The weapons are undeniably good, with a lovely weight and sound to them, standouts include a silenced pistol which is a carbon copy from Perfect Dark, not a bad thing in my book; Lovely sound and reload animation.
the last gun the MINIM1 is straight out of Black; while firing off a full clip into approaching enemies with the surrounding environment erupting in a hayle of bullets is simply electrifying.
That’s the main, and, if I’m honest, only 'hook' of the game; blasting bad guys with the weapon of your choosing and watching the destruction around you. It does this very well. That’s it though.
The 'destruction' is nothing like a frostbite engined game, most of the things to blow-up are only objects like cars, petrol cans, trucks, fuel tanks, not main architectural buildings. So after a large fire fight looking back at the level it looks much the same as in the beginning with no real architectural differences. Shame. Codemasters game engine is barely able to keep things running smoothly; in the heat of battle things do stutter quite a lot I’ve even had a full system crash when I called in a air strike while looking over a very large map. So doing destructible buildings is a tall order.
Some of the later levels in the target interior, which are the polar opposites of the Africa levels with everything polished steels and glass. Are very, very challenging on later hardnesses. In one situation you open a door and after walking in and the door closing for good behind you you find yourself in a large room with a button in the middle to press, no escape. [Not original in any way, its taken straight from the doom games] you know what’s coming after you've pressed the button and there’s no real cover anywhere. Just a blast just running and gunning.
I'm under no allusions that this is a game that doesn't sit well in the current market of FPS, but hopefully the people who did buy it and 100% it are not just trophy whores but are really enjoying it for what it is, a old-skool blast

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