If, like some of the team here, you’re thinking the first person shooter genre is getting as stale as the smell of gunpowder, Bodycount might be right up your baddie-laden street. Taking cues from Black and ensuring that there’s never a dull moment, Bodycount manages to feel both relevant and unique by ensuring it never loses its focus: being bombastic, fun and – dare we say it – a little throwaway.
It’s like an eighties action movie shoved into a console, full of gratutious dives over balconies and explosions the size of houses – oh, and bullets that rip right through pretty much every bit of cover you’d normally find solace behind in any other game. Move, aim, fire, move, aim and fire.
[drop]We had the chance to play through two levels of Bodycount recently, both apparently from the beginning of the single player campaign but both about as different in style and direction as you could imagine.The first, a neon-lit underground bunker, was full of techno stylings and plenty of close combat action, processed mainly with the help of a wickedly powerful shotgun. Set against a strict time limit, the player must constantly make his escape whilst taking out handfuls of enemies intent on ensuring you don’t make it out alive.
We missed out the first time (by a couple of seconds) but didn’t have a problem on a retry, having figured out how the various perks and attributes work (like boosting adrenaline) and remembering that the game wanted us to keep on our feet the whole time.
The second level was a marked departure. Starting off in a wooden hut, our first job was to down a huge cannon-wielding individual who not only soaked up plenty of regular bullets but also managed to dust off land mines and grenades too. Tank characters are great fun when handled well, and the tight confines of the environment (an external, dusty affair) meant that we had to keep switching tactics to stay alive.
Once he was out of the way, the game shifted to a long range shoot-out where two factions were already in the middle of battle – our presence only served to mix things up a little and show off the game’s neat leaning mechanic (hold the trigger half way) which meant moving from cover to cover was as easy as could be.
[drop2]We were shepherded around the rest of the level by the developers, clearly not wanting us to see certain bits of the level that were to remain a surprise, but we can say there were explosives to place, snipers to take out and lots of running. The game prides itself on ensuring that the action doesn’t let up, and it very nearly works – the aiming felt a little wooden and the movement a tad slow given the nature of the game, but it’s still early days and it’s obvious there’s a fair bit of potential here.What does work is the weaponry; each gun feels like its got a real kick and the enemy reactions to getting shot are tactile and punchy. The story too, at least what we saw of it, seems laden in conspiracy theory and double crossing, which could be a real treat.
With some neat ideas – skill kills like headshots get you more of the in-game currency than just regular shooting and a deep combo system means the game will have a heavy emphasis on score challenges – Bodycount could well find itself the centre of attention.
And like we said at the start, the FPS genre needs a little bit of a reboot – maybe Codemasters’ latest will do exactly that.
BIGAL-1992
SOLD!
Foxhound_Solid
Will look out for this. I have black for ps2 and the guns were amazing in that…
Spotter5
A time limit in a mission? Puts me *right* off. I hate time limits. Plus its not ‘Black 2’ in a sense, doesn’t really appeal to me :(
kivi95
Same here. I hate to not be able to take my time to not strees out the game.
nofi
Time limit was just one part of one mission. Plenty of FPS games have such sections.
tactical20
10min campaign then!
Obviously gonna be short if it’s full of extravagant set pieces.
nofi
I think the devs are going for a 10 hr campaign.
Samiro05
Cool, I like the combo n skill stuff. I don’t get the ‘throwaway’ reference at the top tho :s
TSBonyman
It sounds deadly, i’m in.
Gamoc
Oooh, I remember reading about Bodycount ages ago. Destruction was the thing I came away from it with, apparently. It sounds pretty damn good from the hands-on, though I’m not a fan of timed sections in games either.
Nofi: Destruction – Is it Red Faction Guerrilla-style everything comes apart or is it just cover and/or specific areas?
Seriously, an FPS with RF:Guerrilla destruction (perhaps with buildings being a bit stronger) would get me so excited.
nofi
Hard to say for sure. I think it’s mainly cover and certain walls, buildings don’t fall down.
Forrest_01
FPS with property/object destruction = BFBC2 & BF3 (when it’s out). Unsure whether earlier Battlefield games utilised destruction as a mechanic, but the frostbyte engine handles it particularly well imo.
Gamoc
Nah, I mean RF:Guerrilla destruction, not panels that break in buildings until it eventually ‘falls down’.
Crocadillian
I felt like shouting, “BRACE YOURSELVES” as i viewed this article. Cool, but haven’t a lot of FPS games also been about blowing crud up and pure action? It does admittedly looks great, but at least for me the fact that it’s a FPS makes it very avoidable (sorry devs :£).
BrainDiver
I really liked Black, so I will definitely keep an eye on this. Sounds promising, good read :)
moshi
If its half as good as Black count me in.