Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
This isn’t Call of Duty. ‘Gritty’ realism and heavily scripted set pieces aren’t what’s on offer here. “It’s all about guns, bullets and the effect they have on the world” says Codematers’ Andy Wilson, who isn’t deterred by the cramped party Bodycount is trying to crash. When I saw the game last year, it was pitched as Lady Gaga meets J. J. Abrams meets Ridley Scott – which sums the experience up quite nicely.
Bodycount does look different. “The game has been designed around the colour wheel”, explains Wilson. From the mustard-yellow haze of war-torn Africa, to the chrome and blood-red interiors of the Target’s lair – Bodycount is a colour swatch of shooting galleries, neatly avoiding the quagmire of brown that many games of this ilk find themselves swimming in. It’s no Killzone or Crysis on a technical front, but it’s striking nonetheless. The bold visuals are complimented by an equally bold approach to shooting.
On several occasions, Wilson spoke of “chewing on a firefight”. By this he means that the game boasts the mechanics to extend the life of your average FPS skirmish. Mastication of individual gun-fights grants the same second-to-second intensity as you’d expect from the genre’s blockbusters, but with enough open space and options outside of this to avoid the corridor-like nature of Call of Duty.
‘Shredding’ is what separates the game from its peers, granting players the power to tear through wood, rock and stone as if it were paper. Bullets can be used to disintegrate enemy cover, leaving them open to the wrath of your firearms. This is the exact same tactic employed by your enemies, however, meaning you can’t rely on one piece of cover for long. It’s subsequently a very fast paced game, demanding quick wits and a quicker trigger finger.
On the arid planes of Africa, the army and militia swap bullets for turf, and as a mute operative of an organisation known only as The Network, you’re caught up in the middle of it all. The dynamic AI means that sometimes one faction will win, and other times the other. Making the most out of the environment is key to survival – you don’t have to (and indeed shouldn’t) run in all guns blazing in order to reach the end of a level.
In Target lairs – the hideouts of the game’s mysterious technologically advanced enemy – the expansiveness of the outdoors is swapped for a cramped network of corridors, where the army and militia are replaced by disciplined SWAT teams. Cover doesn’t last half as long here, forcing a change of tactics. Within seconds of the safety coming off the guns, these areas become a mess of broken glass and fresh corpses, the resulting gameplay being much quicker in pace.
Downed enemies drop Intel orbs, which can be used to fuel special abilities. Adrenaline, for example, grants the player temporary invincibility. By shredding through cover and dispatching of your foes in unconventional ways, you’ll earn more orbs. Chaining kills to together also goes down well, adding to a multiplyer of sorts. At the end of a level, you’re graded on your performance and ranked alongside your chums on a leaderboard – not dissimilar to Bulletstorm’s Skillshot system.
People Can Fly’s foul-mouthed blood-fest proved that you don’t have to be a serious military shooter to do well for yourself in the FPS market, which is a good sign for Codemasters. Bodycount does offer something different, but verbalising that to the masses is tricky. Thankfully, Wilson revealed that a Bodycount demo is on the cards.
Development hasn’t been easy for the Guildford-based developer, which recently suffered a creative casualty with the loss of Stuart Black. But development is still going strong. “The words ‘pure, focused, arcade shooter’ are words that he was saying eighteen months ago,” says Wilson “and they’re words I’m still saying now. There are positives to come out of everything, and I’m really happy where we’ve ended up”
Bodycount will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on September 2.
