Bodycount

Not unlike Space Marine, Bodycount's promotional media did a good job of convincing me that this wasn't just going to be another rote genre entry -- that it would do its shooting so well, and combine it with enough unique, flavorful twists, that it would be set apart from FPS juggernauts like Call of Duty and Battlefield. But based on the demo, it, to be blunt, doesn't.

The controls are surprisingly complicated for how typical most of the mechanics are; one notable exception from the norm is its lean system. When you press the left trigger to aim, if you hold it all the way down, you'll be rooted in place and can lean left or right (whereas, holding it halfway will allow you to strafe as is customary). The lean can be pretty useful, but the control is baffling -- when I'm in a tense moment and I jam on the trigger, I don't want to stand still and get shot at.

Codemasters has also been hyping up Bodycount's varied color scheme, which replaces the typical grays and browns with yellows, greens, and blues. And while it's true that the game draws from a rich palette, the high-detail art direction - combined with muddy texturing, which is unfortunate - means that rather than using color for contrast effect, game elements just end up blending in with one another.

As for the destructible environment, this is no Geo-Mod -- only certain things can be destroyed. So rather than a real mechanic, it ends up feeling like a context-sensitive opportunity.

Of course the big question is, since Bodycount is a first-person shooter that goes mostly by the numbers, why is there no PC version? The demo's default aim sensitivity is down way too low, which may or may not be related. It gives me the impression that Bodycount's developers are more familiar with GoldenEye and Halo than with Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament -- because if they were PC players, they would surely know that the platform has already perfected a control scheme for this kind of game.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished the demo level