Bodycount Review (Xbox 360)

It’s really difficult to fault a game for doing what it’s supposed to do.

Unless of course that which it’s supposed to do isn’t all that great to begin with.

You see, that’s the problem with Bodycount – it’s not that it’s a bad game, per se – it’s just so entirely unremarkable and shallow that it leaves you feeling like you’re just killing time while you wait for your toaster to warm your buttered bun.

Insert generic heading here

Don’t ask me what Bodycount is actually about, because I haven’t the foggiest idea. It apparently involved some malarky about an agency called “the Network” that sends you, a faceless, generic militant known only as “the Asset”, into a typical war-torn African city to shoot everything in sight.

In fact, the only thing that stood out to me in any way during the opening level of the game was the sheer amazement at how this game got released without African-American woman’s group, Black Looks, getting all up in Codemaster’s grill a la Resident Evil 5.

Considering the flak Resident Evil 5 got for sending Chris Redfield into an African village to kill uroboros-infected Africans – I’m really surprised there’s not been a peep about the equally as white, “Asset”, emptying clips into normal, not-infected-by-anything Africans.

In all fairness though, with the repeated use of character models (with a bit of a different colour palette now and then) you’re only really killing about 2 people over and over again, anyway.

Maybe the game is making some statement about cloning, or perhaps the game is simply a dumb shooter that doesn’t faff about with stories and characters, but instead opts for mind-numbing shooty-shooty action!

This is the part I mentioned where the game does what it’s supposed to do. Mostly.

Duck and cover

After dropping into the map, you’re given your weapons and get thrown into the crossfire of two opposing militant groups. You’re on your own team, so you kill them all.

The game uses a rather novel cover feature, where pushing the trigger makes you duck. Not behind anything, mind you – that’s something you control manually as you determine where the hell you are as you bob around.

While this is a nice change from conventional cover systems – it’s a bit clumsy; it’s difficult to determine when you’re actually behind cover (usually when the bullets stop hitting you, you’re okay) – but by the time you’ve isolated that perfect spot to take out enemies, they’ve already bombarded you with grenades, and effectively destroyed the cover altogether.

Thus began my semi-effective method of running head-first into enemies and shooting them in the face.

The game allows for some degree of strategy when it comes to taking on missions – but you will eventually have to kill everything anyway, so why waste time sneaking about.

It’s a warzone

Enemies aren’t stupid, and will take cover, lob grenades at you and know well enough that there are other enemies about besides you – but at the same time there are a fair share that dance around with targets on their heads, waiting for you to introduce them to an early death.

The game has the most ridiculous “currency” in the form of “intel” – which is indicated rather comically by large exclamation symbols littered all over the aftermath of your shoot-fest.

Killing enemies more effectively (boom! Headshot!) gives more intel, which in turn powers up one of four special abilities (temporary invulnerability, exploding bullets, night vision and calling an airstrike).

So basically, killing people makes them drop documents containing data which directly feeds into your brain either boosting you physically by numbing pain – or mentally, by removing the hurr durr and allowing you to remember how to use basic equipment you had all along.

As the game progresses, you get more enemies to shoot at (yes, white people amongst them) and some tougher “boss”-like baddies who take a little bit more to dispose of; but the main idea of “shoot everything to sh*t” doesn’t change much. At all.

What really counts

Admittedly I never got to finish Bodycount; I got to the later levels, almost 5 hours in, and It was around about that point that thieves broke into my house and stole my TV.

While I am significantly annoyed at this fact – somewhere in my heart of hearts, I think the universe was actually doing me a favour.

As I said: it’s not that Bodycount is a bad game – it’s actually quite a fun game; but only in the sense that, say, Kung Pow is a fun movie: It’s a mindless, almost pointless, romp that doesn’t suck enough to disregard it, but also doesn’t excel enough to make it a must-have title.

You’ll undoubtedly have a blast just shooting things like a crazy man; whooping as the environments dissipate in your wake – but it will be over very quickly, and boredom will set in as you routinely dispatch enemies the same way you’ve been doing all along.

With so many great games out, and still more to come – especially shooters – Bodycount doesn’t really have a place in my limited attention span – even though it doesn’t take much of it to play.