Bodycount Review

By Kevin Mitchell  |  Posted: December 1, 2011

If all you care about is shooting and blowing things up, Bodycount would be for you. Even with something as simple as this though, things become more complicated than they should. You play as an operative from the Network sent in to help stop the constant fighting in Africa — as you can do what the standard government agencies cannot. Think of the Network like the A-Team without the cool unique characters... or the van.

Coming from Codemasters and the guys behind the PlayStation 2 greatest hits game Black, I had high hopes for an awesome single-player experience. Sadly, what we are left with is a first-person shooter with barely any plot and what is there is roughly seven hours of pure destruction. Most of the game takes place in African shantytowns, but you also find a secret, futuristic military facility built underground, run by Target — the agency behind everything. Thankfully, most of these environments are fully destructible.

The controls do take some time to get used to because they come off as pretty awkward from the start. By the time you get to the end of the game, you will be comfortable with them — even online. Once you aim down the barrel of your gun, you become locked in place, and the only movement you have is a dynamic leaning element. This allows you to duck behind objects and lean around them at will. It's not a bad system, but definitely something that needs to be worked on. Grenades, on the other hand, simply don't work for you, but the enemies have no problems tossing perfect spirals to your feet from seemingly nowhere. Your grenades have the tendency to get caught in the environment, and more often than not, tend to be the reason for your deaths.

Bodycount contains a skillful scoring system that punishes running through the levels guns blazing. The system forces players to go through the campaign carefully, spending extra time to make sure that every shot is a headshot to keep the multiplier active. It's a good design but does not work in a game like this that encourages environment destruction and wasting ammo shooting through walls. Personally, I ignored the multiplier and played how I wanted to play this game — with guns blazing. At the end of each level, you will find a boss character that you have to kill. While the bosses pack a punch, they amount to nothing more than bullet sponges.

Simply Put

Bodycount is a game with so much potential, but falls flat on its face. The ability to shoot through walls and doors and destroy bits and pieces of the environment is great. All shooters should implement this, but there is a lack of cohesiveness between all the pieces of the puzzle here. Having a destructible environment and a game that seemingly encourages wasting ammo, but then discourages it with the point scoring system in place is confusing. In a game like this, I don't want to be restricted. As for multiplayer, it has a co-op mode and the standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, but good luck finding anyone playing. The lack of varying environments and lack of a story brings this game down — which is why Bodycount gets a 4/10.