Body count review
Release date: August 30, 2011
Publisher: T.H.Q.
ESRB Rating: Mature
Body count is a first-person shooter game published by UK-based Codemasters and developed in-house by their Guildford studio. Bodycount’s approach to the genre is the polar opposite of Codemasters’ other FPS franchise, the ultra-realistic Operation: flash point Serie. The result is a stripped-down shooter that eschews ideas of tactics, stealth, or cover in favor of Rambo’s run-and-gun style. In fact, it looks a lot like another FPS whose roots lie in Guildford, England, and has been called the spiritual successor to this one. A little PS2 and Xbox title called Black.
Now I’m going to tell you up front, Body count it’s not as good as black, but there are similarities. Both games are terribly short. Bodycount’s The single-player campaign clocks in well under the 10-hour mark, and that’s if you take your time. also like Blackthe plot is equally confusing and not always easy to follow. BC It spreads out plot elements during load times to help flesh out the razor-thin story, but otherwise most of the details are delivered via voice in your ear. A voice that, for the first half of the game anyway, I thought was supposed to be some kind of computer rather than a real person. Maybe it had something to do with the voice acting, I don’t know. I know the voice wasn’t very helpful in letting me know what was going on. One minute I’m fighting in the streets of a city in Africa, the next I’m in some kind of military complex that looks like something out of the Matrix. Oh, and it may or may not be run by a war profiteer bent on world domination. Oh, and it’s full of super soldiers in futuristic bulletproof vests who are prepared to kill me.
On the plus side, both games share some satisfying gunplay. Weather Body count doesn’t fetishize their weaponry like Black did, each game gives its respective arsenal an undeniable feel that’s satisfying, but hard to describe. Guns just fire the way you want them to. The savagely destructible bodies and objects that litter the maps react to your fire the way you’d expect them to, whether it’s a slow fall of a silenced pistol shot to the back of the head, or equal parts walls. guy being thrown backwards by a shotgun blast at chest height. Body count it tries, with some minor success, to augment all of this with a “skill shots” system that encourages headshots, environmental kills (read: exploding barrels), and the like. Body count it goes to great lengths to make you want to shoot things, and for the most part it succeeds. Too bad he’s the only real force in the game.
It’s not just the gratification of turning meat, wood, and stone into Swiss cheese that will make you want to download your virtual clip. Half the reason you’ll want to take these baddies out is because they’re too stupid to live. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve walked, not run, but walked up to an enemy and stabbed him in the face before he even reacted to my presence. And if they don’t sit still, they’re charging you. Several times I encountered enemies so focused on their bloodthirsty charge that if they didn’t stop within two feet of me before pausing to find a place to hide, they actually ran past me. Still, on occasion, these airheaded fools will manage to overwhelm you with their sheer numbers. Depending on your mission progress, this may expose you to the same design flaw in the game’s checkpoint system that I found. A few times I reappeared in a position that forced me to go back to trigger an event I had already seen. While not a game-breaking issue, it was frustrating every time I encountered it.
The game features a mandatory multiplayer component with a few different game varieties, including the ever-present deathmatch. While there aren’t many maps, they are big and literal with a destructible cover. Arcade-style run-and-gun lends itself well to online play, but ultimately it’s too little, too late, as the multiplayer component can’t carry the title on its own. Unfortunately, while Black was able to top its abbreviated campaign with solid action movie-style gunfights, Bodycount’s flaws are too numerous. Sure, it’s still fun to shoot the guns, but you almost feel sorry for the computerized opposition when you do.