I wanted it so bad!
I am of the old school fps fragger mindset. Quake and UT took many many hours of my life. I fell out of love with shooters when it all became a bit calculating and power up based. Then tactics becoming integral killed it for me.
Then Black arrived and I could have wept with joy. It was like someone had made a game for all us late twenties early thirties types who remembered what Godlike felt like. Even with the lack of jump, Black was the best thing to happen to my ps2, I crave it even now! The critics didn't really like it then. Run and shoot **** Hide, shoot some **** For the first time, I played an FPS without a mouse. Bloody brilliant, what it all started from.
So we come to Bodycount. No story? Thank god, I will read a book or watch a film if I want to immerse myself in a great yarn. I don't want to pretend I am genuinely in training to go to war.
Cut scenes? I had to fight through endless hours of pointless video in the last MGS to enjoy the actual gameplay. Overblown stories rarely make any difference to how you play the game.
BC does tick some of the boxes that Black did. It is clearly based heavily on it. The grenades comments are very fair and I resist the urge to say 'Grenada' aloud as one blows me to bits.
The graphics are, quite honestly, shocking. The textures are terrible, lighting poor. The maps are interesting in their openness, you are not forced through them in a linear fashion, which is all too common now. The menu's and ammo/intel icons are frankly insulting. Garish and childlike. Each one an ugly and distracting blot.
The AI leaves a lot to be desired, it would have been nice to run around (sometimes) noisy as all hell alerting all in the area that you were there and for them to descend upon you.
Alas, no.
The sound effects can be irritating.
The destructability of the environment is not a patch on Black.
I do, however, like the new leaning movement and the pressure sensitivity element.
So, on the face of it, Bodycount fails in virtually every way, in quite a spectacular fashion. But, you know what? My word it is fun. It is what it used to be about. It is the thing that this woman lost hours of sleep over 15 years ago. It is not Black, or Quake or UT. It is the fun we have all forgotten to have in the past 7 years of gaming. It's all too damn serious.
I truly wish Codemasters had done it better.
I truly wish it was Black 2.
It ain't but it's fun!
So frag on ppl, frag on!