Bedlam Review

One minute our heroine is sat in her office where she works as a Game developer and the next she is transported through some act of God, into a 'Tron' like situation. Now known as Agent Athena, our feisty, potty mouthed Scotch heroine, finds herself armed with a gun, a suit of body armour...and also realises she is in the body of an alien soldier! The humans seem to be the bad guys, so despite having to adjust to this situation she soon settles down to the noble art of staying alive, in the hope she can get back to her normal life...best of luck with that as there are plenty of bad guys willing to make sure she doesn't!  From aliens, to World War 2 Zombie Nazis and medieval skeletons in a sword and sorcery zone, our heroine (and you) is going to have her work cut out....

Retro fun for all.....

Or is it? That's a good question. Whilst the game can bring a nostalgic smile too the face (as in the case of the above Quake clone) it soon becomes apparent that despite respectable nods to the past and video game FPS history, it cannot gloss over the fact that the game has faults. It's A.I is at times sharp and then somewhat dumb. Enemies are one minute dodging shots and using cover, or coming at you head on in an almost bersrker like fury. Whilst it makes life 'interesting' to say the least, it makes the games learning curve a steep affair indeed. Even veteran gamers may feel like they are being put through a grinder and it becomes a bullet ridden version of Dark Souls as you will die...and die again....and die some more.

Controls

It utilises the normal load out that modern FPS shooters do, move with left stick, aim with the right, R1 to shoot, B to crouch etc etc, and to be fair they are fairly responsive and response to input suffers no noticeable delay. But and this is a big but, the level of challenge soon becomes a major butt kicking problem. Take the above Quake zone clone as an example. You start off by yourself with a gun and an ethereal voice to guide you, and you are given an objective, take back control of three zones and do it pretty damned quickly. So off you go, gun in hand and start blasting before they can blast you. First zone arrive, shoot and kill the bad guys, and stand in the large white circle for three seconds. Great you have control of that zone off too the next....rinse and repeat and then....wait, you are telling me that before I can get to zone three and clear this level, I have to wrestle back control of zone 1? The scottish heroine's potty mouth echoed exactly what I was thinking at that point.....

It does not get any easier.

Game Play

First of all, you can access a set of options where you can set a targeting lock...shame it doesn't always stick. Sure you can highlight an enemy, and the reticule can turn red to say it's locked so shoot the sucker...but then it soon becomes white again and before you can adjust to the this status, the enemy has sidestepped and has shot you in the face. Physics seems to vary from Rag Doll style body parts flying and bouncing around to the retro style just fall over spurting pixelated blood. Thing is it seems to switch between the two at random and on the fly during the same level. It's not a major fault but it does jar somewhat, at least it does for me.

And then comes the somewhat hit and miss save point system, either logging you back at the last checkpoint to the start of the whole darned level. In theory you can select what it does, but it sometimes decides for itself just what in the name of hell it's going to do anyway. Frustrating to say the least. It seems that this problem was not spotted during development and I cannot see it being fixed by a patch anytime soon.

It has no multiplayer, no big deal, but it also lacks a cooperative mode which is a shame. The coop mode could and would have made this a different experience and a somewhat more pleasurable one. But that does not mean to say that the game is a complete mess or a critical failure, it's just flawed.

So is it worth your money?

Yes and no. It had potential to be an absolute cracker of a game, but opportunities were missed I feel. The end result is a nostalgic blast, and an entertaining one BUT it's faults can and do mar the enjoyment of this game. With no multi player that's another minus (even though I do not do much online multiplayer gaming) as this could have been an enjoyable experience to have mutiplayer. The best your buddies can do is sit and watch and wait for you to pass the controller too them so they can have a go.

It's not expensive to buy at the moment, but maybe you should wait until they put it on offer. It's a shame that there's no demo mode for it so you can 'try before you buy' because if that was an option, then that's what I would suggest you do first.

Plusses.

1) Nostalgic levels take you on a trip down memory lane

2) Sharp witty dialogue though spiced with expletives.

3) Challenging game play

Minuses

1) The above game play as mentioned can be darned well frustrating to say the least

2) Poor target lock on

3) Inconsistent production values.

4) A dodgy saving system

5) No cooperation which would have made this a whole lot better and more enjoyable.

I recomend this title (Ben can we have a recommended button please?) but advise you approach with caution. It's not a must buy but does not count as a must avoid. Like I said it's Dark Souls but with a gun....