Billed as the spiritual successor to the classic last-gen shooter, Black, until the mysterious departure of motor-mouthed project lead, Stuart Black, Bodycount is a stingingly average shooter. Troubling enough, it's also competing in a market where an armoury of titles in an already overcooked genre battle for your attention (and wallet) on a weekly basis.
Leaning heavily towards destruction and less towards narrative (its present, but wafer thin); Bodycount makes a valiant attempt at injecting a little bit of fun back into the first person shooter. Scenery can be chewed with bullets; enemies are hurled across environments in comical ways by the blunt force trauma of a close-range shotgun blast, while each weapon on offer is neatly balanced and surprisingly weighty.
Unfortunately the combat itself is messy; levels are uninspiring and marred by the odd annoying checkpoint that - even after youve amassed a hefty body count and cleared the arena - isnt clearly signposted. Points are banked by chaining kills together through the doling out of headshots, explosive kills and takedowns through cover - the more you link, the bigger the score, but this score multiplier feels more like a last minute implementation than a well planned mechanic in comparison to EAs raucous Bulletstorm. File this one under 'misfire'.