Bodycount - Let the bodies hit the floor

Bodycount is a very simple game. It hands you guns, a virtually unlimited supply of ammunition coupled with enough explosive power to level an entire country and encourages you to go shoot people in the face. In doing so it even throws a ton of environmental destruction your way so you can physically feel the repercussions of your actions. While this formula sounds golden on paper, Bodycount’s execution suffers a great deal thanks to repetitive level design, dumb AI and overall lack of polish.

Bodycount: Reviewed on Video

In Bodycount you play as a member of a group called The Network. All you need to know is that you’re one of the good guys who get sent around the world to stop a nefarious group called the Target. And by around the world I mean shuttling from a fictional war torn African city to a rain soaked Asian one since this game’s not too huge on diversity. From time to time, you’ll suddenly find yourself in the futuristic underground bunkers of the Target that for some reason feel heavily inspired by the world of Tron.

Nothing stands in my way

Like I mentioned in my introduction, Bodycount is a very straightforward shooter. You move from point A to B, shoot anything that moves and make your way to the extraction point. Unfortunately the game’s plagued by an insane amount of backtracking so instead of just moving from A to B, you’ll move from A to B, then back to A again, get sent to C, come back to A, visit B again and then if you’re lucky end the level. This makes an otherwise entertaining romp a complete pain in the backside.

For a game that’s all about blowing stuff up, I found it highly ironic that Bodycount doesn’t allow you to swap weapons on the fly. This means you’ll be stuck with whatever weapon you choose at the start of the level till you end it. Granted ammunition is plenty, but this is still a very restrictive gameplay design that forces players to stick to just two weapons. As you progress through chapters you’ll unlock newer and more powerful firepower that can neither be upgraded nor customized. At the end of random chapters, you’ll also be bestowed with new abilities that allow you to call in for airstrikes, deploy explosive ammo, move faster or emit a sonic radar that messes with your enemies heads. I got by through the game using just explosive ammo since the AI in this game is just so goddamn dense. Most of the time, enemies just blindly charge at you begging you to end their dumb existence. Towards the end of the game, you’ll probably die a lot not because enemies miraculously grow a brain but because the game just cheaply spawns them behind you, ambushing you to mask this glaring flaw.

You won't get far

Visually the game looks like an upgraded PS2 game. Its blurry, washed out visuals stand out like a sore thumb in today’s day and age where gamers are spoilt by the likes of Uncharted 3, God of War III and the Crysis series. Sure Bodycount won’t win any awards in the visual department but you’ll forget about the horrendous visuals as your machine gun starts shredding doors, blowing chunks off walls and plugging all sorts of holes through the bad guys.

Bodycount could have been a great game. In fact it could have been this generation’s Black if only Codemasters applied a bit of spit and polish to the game. In a month crowded with some AAA games, it’s tough to recommend a shooter like Bodycount but if you’re in the mood for some mindless, explosive action, Bodycount could be the cure for that itch.