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The first time I played Bodycount I got a D which, depending on whether we follow the GCSE or A-Level pass criteria, is either an outright failure or a marginal pass.
My all-encompassing, soul-wrenching defeat was probably down to the fact I hadn’t read our last Bodycount preview – I think there’s a lesson to be learnt there, planet Earth – which meant I wasn’t aware of things such as the Skill Kill system, the combat multiplier, or the need to rack up a hefty bodycount (hence the title doyousee) to nab the high scores.
I also wasn’t aware of the chunky heft to the weapons, which swing around with noticeable weight in a fashion far more similar to Killzone 2 than Call of Duty, or the devastating grenades that can easily obliterate three of four guys in a couple of seconds. I didn’t know about the wonderful mines, which you throw out in generous clumps and pepper the destructible environments as they wait for some unsuspecting targets.
I certainly had no idea about Bodycount’s unique cover system, either, which anchors you to the ground when looking down the sights of your weapon, keeping you stationary but allowing you to peek left and right with opportunistic ease.
Still, a quick slap of retry later and it was time for my second go. The stage Codemasters was showing off was set in Africa, and starts with you holed up in a hut trying to escape the attention of a massive hulking psychopath with a minigun. As you do.
This does, however, pose an initial predicament – do you try and kill the lumbering tank of a man, or let the local militia work on taking him out? The latter makes your job a lot easier, but you’ll miss out on the extra bodycount offered up by the former. For the record, I threw all my grenades at his face and then went a little crazy with the shotgun.
Afterwards I had to follow the arid environment around to a massive communications tower, weaving through shacks and huts along the way, dispatching everything in your way as efficiently as possible – all while trying to keep my score multiplier up, of course.
Before long the mission ended up on a bridge and I was required to fend off a few waves of The Target, a mysterious group of hazy, ambiguous intent that’s working to undermine the work done by the hazy, ambiguous organisation you work for. The best way to do this is to cover the entire bridge in mines and wait for the unlucky sods to run at you.
Then I had to jump off the bridge, and grappling hook my way onto a helicopter via a cutscene, in a scene unashamedly inspired by The Dark Knight. And, when the results came in, I got an A.
To cut a long story short, the first time I played Bodycount I didn’t know much about the game whatsoever. Maybe you’re in the same boat, and your knowledge of the game has been entirely obliterated by the massive marketing and hype campaigns of some of the autumn’s biggest titles. I don’t blame you: I was the same. And then I was contractually obliged to play Bodycount. And while I doubt you’ll find an iconic, genre-defining treat within its corridors and open-plan environments, if you love blowing stuff up then you might just want to pay some attention to this one.
Bodycount will be released for Xbox 360 and PS3 on September 2.
