Be Excellent To Each Other

Double postage!

:DD

Did you go and pay for it in the end?

I done played it through last night. Soul that is.

Very good. Made me shout, made me smile and made me jump a few times*.

Well worth 80pts.

*

I do love something a little dark and edgy.

Judging by the demo, this sucks.

Mission 2: The teammate AI actually works against you... as soon as you 'shift' out of a car, it immediately slows down and allows the two rivals to get past. Towards the end I was actually jumping back and forth every second just to ensure they kept the accelerator planted to, you know, drive fast along the straight, clear road ahead.

Mission 3: Oh good. An infinite number of cops, all who can accelerate like they've been fired out of a railgun, smashing into me from every direction at once. Meanwhile, my dislikable character and his superior exchange the world's stupidest quips every time something hits me (so, constantly)

Are all these cars carrying a load of fucking bricks? Are their tires bald? Why do I accelerate so much slower than my pursuers? Is this really what you think Hollywood car chase power sliding should feel like in a game ? What are arbitrary fucking time limits doing in a game in 2011? How can I care about the story when the characters are so annoying I had to turn the voice volume down to zero? Why does Tanner, a cop, want to help an illegal street racing team? Why are there cable car tracks outside the Transamerica Pyramid?

Here's something to try in the demo, though. Go into a power slide, while charging up the 'ram' button. Release it. If that's how we're meant to corner in this game, they really are nuts. I'm just frustrated that yet another Driver game is utterly failing to fulfil its potential as a driving playground for fun, varied missions in cars. The ridiculous 'shifting' thing had potential (more if they weren't so damned po-faced about it being a serious thing in the story) for allowing lots of hijinx, but the usual bad mission design is letting it down again.

Played. Had to, really, it's got a G36 on the cover.

Oh dear.

The biggest problem is, of course, the fact that you become rooted to the spot when you aim down the sight. They want you to unlearn the last six or seven years of FPS shootery (on a joypad, that is) and that's not going to happen. Not when the reward is so very very poor. Being able to lean is cool, but entirely unnecessary in an action shooter like this. Milsims have lean to ensure that you don't catch the single bullet that will kill you. Here, you gasp your way back to health like a good action hero. It also means that crouching down to take cover is a lot harder to do, and I'm sure in a crucial situation you WILL end up fumbling the controls and not getting your head down in time. This whole thing isn't aided by the fact that a) you don't actually aim down the sights any more than you are when firing from the hip, and b) soldiers are able to and indeed do, walk around (albeit slowly, as seen in countless other games) with their weapons raised and ready to fire.

So what are we left with? How about some INCREDIBLY sluggish controls? You'll be killed in seconds if you don't turn up the look sensitivity as soon as you start, and even with it on 100% it still wasn't quite quick enough for my liking (my liking is usually around 75% or 'fast' in games). Plus, there is almost a full second's pause between pushing the stick and your guy even starting to turn. The result of all this was I was struggling in the fights at first, as the little sidesteps I would take while aiming down the sights weren't possible, it took me forever to turn to face a new threat and I couldn't draw a bead fast enough to shoot them and then quickly let go to properly move back into cover - in case I hadn't taken the time to properly position myself behind something so I could then lean out as the game wants me to do.

Shooting this off doesn't bode well for a shooter. The G36 itself (wonderful weapon IRL) felt weedy both in its report and in the impact... I just kinda sprayed towards an enemy and they kinda fell over, no sense of power. The shotgun was a lot better but inappropriate for much of the mission, filled as it was with snipers. The actual snipers, with actual sniper rifles, were killed so easily thanks to their guard towers exploding regardless of where I shot (a concession to the shoddy shooting?) that I couldn't believe it was that easy. Not as easy, though, as the dreaded militia leader, who after a huge buildup, a worrying entrance (he crashes through a wall) and alarming appearance (huge guy carrying a huge gun) fell after just half a clip from my gun, fired in one burst.

All that remained was to carry out the one objective, though it took spraying bullets everywhere to realize that some of the walls were impenetrable metal and others were almost indistinguishable but destructible wood.

This isn't OTT at all... a few bright pickups strewn around (not explained in the demo), the world's least exciting jump (he doesn't even grunt like a convincing FPS hero) and some weird multipliers totting up (also not explained) struck me not as being OTT and wacky so much as slightly retro. No bad thing, but not endearing me either.

So:
-interesting attempt to change the tried and tested ADS that fails
-boring enemies
-colourful scenery, for a change!
-weedy guns
-seriously uninspired structure (wow, a woman in my ear is setting waypoints for me)
-stiff controls
-old school pickups and scoring that might be cool if they'd bothered explaining how they work

Oh, and here's a little tip, guys: don't fucking kick me back to the Dashboard when I finish the demo. I might want another go (I did) but I don't see why I should sit through your corporate logos and licensing screens again.

'Not representative of quality of final product'? Don't send it out to try and convince people to buy your game, then. Sorry, but this will be best enjoyed two weeks after release for £20. You should have released it a month ago during the summer games drought, instead of pitching it against Deus Ex, Red Orchestra 2 and Gears of War 3.

EDIT: Oh, forgot one thing: I had no idea what was happening... whether the government soldiers were on my side or not. It turns out no, they're not, it's me vs the world.

EDIT EDIT: As per LazyNinja's comment below, I went back and tried again. Yes, pulling the trigger only halfway in puts you into more traditional ADS mode where you can still walk freely around. However, in the heat of battle, trying to maintain the correct pressure while making violent controller adjustments otherwise often meant I was unconsciously pulling the trigger too far and going into lean mode.

As I was getting into bed last night, a thought struck me about the whole "wait for the bargain bin" thing.

Consider Battlefield 3 or MW3 (and suspend your inner fanboy). Huge amounts of content, loads of game modes, so so much to see and do.

Now consider Bodycount's content... There's no way it'll match either of those two heavy hitters.

Why on earth would you pay full price for Bodycount (£34 on Amazon) when you get so much more at full price for Battlefield 3 (£38)? To put it another way: I'd be much, much more inclined to pay £20 or even £25 for a little game like Bodycount to have a few days of fun with because I know that's about how long it'll last. Or in another other way (the beloved car analogy) they're charging Mercedes money for a Vauxhall.

That Spacemarines looks genuinely decent. Anyone given it a bash yet?