Bodycam Excels At Realism, But Fails At Being A Video Game

‘Cam Disconnected’ – a prompt that I quickly became sick of seeing after trying out Bodycam for the first time this week. This first-person shooter is, by far, the most ultra-realistic title within the genre that you’ll find on the market right now. But while Bodycam excels at being realistic, it fails at being what I believe is the most important aspect of a video game: fun.

Before I explain my reasoning for this, there are a couple of things to note. Bodycam is currently in Early Access and is being developed entirely by two passionate French developers, Luca and Leo, who are just 17 and 20 years old. It might be easy for me to sit here and pick apart a video game, but accomplishing such an impressive feat at such a young age deserves some praise.

Alas, part of my job is to dissect and analyse the latest video games, and Bodycam quickly went from a game that had been on my wishlist for weeks to one that I’ll likely refund.

This Is No Ordinary First-Person Shooter

I will acknowledge – and urge everybody thinking of purchasing Bodycam to acknowledge – that this is not meant to be your everyday first-person shooter à la Call of Duty or Battlefield, and the developers make that clear. When I booted up Bodycam for the first time, I was greeted with a message that informed me that Bodycam could take some getting used to, as it doesn’t feel or play like other games in the genre. And they weren’t lying.

Unlike games such as Call of Duty, which rely on more content and innovation with each passing entry, Bodycam’s primary selling point is its ultra-realistic graphics. It’s a strange fixation that is becoming increasingly popular in video games, and one that I’ve never quite understood the appeal of. Granted, Bodycam’s immense graphics did draw me in, but I ultimately value content and gameplay over how a game looks.

Unfortunately, Bodycam’s pretty visuals weren’t enough to keep me entertained for longer than an hour.

More Of A Tech Demo, Less Of A Video Game

When I first booted up Bodycam, I was greeted with some obnoxiously loud and rather jarring dubstep music that made me feel like I’d just torrented a game and received one of those bizarre installers…or so I hear, I’ve never done such a thing.

I was then greeted with a rather basic UI with my Steam friends on the left and a YouTube video on the right. Again, I found the placement of the YouTube video to be rather odd. But, nevertheless, I double-checked all of my settings, realised there was very little customization available and no way to pick my weapon, and jumped into a match.

Similar to how you can’t select your weapon, you also can’t select which game mode you want to play. At least not when you select quick play, anyway. I was then placed into a game that was currently in progress. The lack of HUD or any sort of indications as to what mode I was playing (the latter of which was largely down to the fact that I joined the game halfway through) left me feeling all out of sorts, but I eventually got to grips with what I was doing.

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The first thing I noticed was the movement. The developers really weren’t lying about Bodycam taking some getting used to. While the graphics might be ultra-realistic, the way you swing your weapon around did not feel natural. I can’t say I’ve ever held a gun in real life, but I’m certain I wouldn’t be throwing it around in the same way that Bodycam does.

As this isn’t your typical arcade shooter, actually getting a kill does feel gratifying, but it also lacks the classic video game “feel” to keep it entertaining. Maybe I’ve been brainwashed by Call of Duty for too many years, but there’s something rather anti-climactic about getting a kill with no hitmarker indications and sometimes absolutely no way to know if you’ve even got the kill.

But I’m well aware that this isn’t the first game to take a more realistic approach to the genre. Hell Let Loose, a strategic war simulator released in 2021, for example, also doesn’t give you any indication when you hit/kill your enemy. But even Hell Let Loose offers some sort of HUD to notify you when you need to heal or where your objective is. When I say that Bodycam has absolutely zero HUD, I mean it. I couldn’t even work out how to drop the bomb that I had just planted, which meant I just had to spam my keyboard and pray that I’d hit the correct key.

Aiming down your sights is sluggish and often doesn’t even work. There were multiple occasions where I was taking cover behind a crate, for example, and my weapon just wouldn’t draw because I was too close to the object in front of me.

Granted, Bodycam is still in Early Access, but this feels like a shell of a game. There’s very little content and its attempt to lean into realism makes it a rather uncomfortable experience. My short time with Bodycam made me feel like I was experiencing more of a tech demo and less of an entertaining video game.

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