I rented this little fella on a whim. Having completely immersed myself in Deus Ex, I thought maybe a something a little more brainless might be a fun way to "cool down" from the whole augmentation experience that had sent the ethical side of my mind into overdrive.
I wasn't disappointed. Bodycount is about as perfect a mediocre game as you can possibly get. The levels aren't varied, the shooting is difficult (hint: aim for the heads, or at least try to), the story is very nonexistent, andif I'm not mistakenthe multiplayer is a rehash of the campaign levels.
First, the story: you go to Africa to spread peace, and find some sort of rival base called "Target." This base is bad. Obviously, the best solution is to shoot everything in sight, hence the title.
Now, the rest: when you're involved in the cover-and-shoot aspect, you can find some enjoyment. But when you have to do more complex things, like oh I don't know ... turning around ... then you'll start to see a problem. It gets more troubling when you try to aim for people's heads, which is more difficult than you might think given the sloppy nature of aiming in this particular piece.
Despite all that, blowing stuff up can be an enjoyable experience. The environmentas limited as it may bedoes a pretty good job of understanding just how powerful your guns are, and explode as would be expected. The final straw came early on when a grenade was lobbed at me from far, far, far, far away, and since no one told me to move, I stayed put, innocently assuming no human being could have thrown that. I was wrong.
On another note, it's worth mentioning that according to 1UP, Battlefield 3 won't let you kill civilians. Their reasoning is a little disturbing. If video games are supposed to be edging closer to reality and the moral situations that accompany it, then eliminating freedom solely because of what players might do seems to me like a bit of a cop-out. It's a fear of politicians and a fear of parenting groups. More, it's a fear of something else, too ... and I don't like the message it sends ...
