Redbedlam (studio)
15 (certificate)
15 October 2015 (released)
21 October 2015
Bedlam is the epic journey of avid gamer Heather Quinn. Quinn is lovable Scottish hardcore FPS player who finds herself trapped with an immense video game world or rather a collection of them. She starts off in clone of early 90’s FPS titans Quake and Doom, depicting the classic 90's bloodbath in a game called Star fire. From there our charming hero is thrown between Quake style adventures to modern Military shooters and even further to Sci-fi epics similar to Halo. As we progress through the game worlds, we notice the evolution of the FPS genre taking place and its effect on the game mechanics and aesthetics too. The graphical representation improves along with the weapons change and new mechanics being introduced. Now this sounds great on paper. Yet, its execution is sadly flawed.
What I can say is that the concept and writing are pretty spot on, showcasing a look at one of gaming’s most defining genre and display how much it’s grown up over the years. The dialogue and plot are neatly written, with likeable characters including our Scottish lash Quinn. She along with a few other female characters happily break the typical male only hold of the FPS genre and Quinn makes a strong presence as a proud gaming girl with a witty and kind hearted personality who kicks ass.
I admire the idea of Bedlam and from the start, the game it looks promising. Introducing mission objectives based on popular FPS game modes, such as capture the flag and even structuring a boss battle into a form of PvP death match. But after the first couple of stages you’ll notice the nature of the game gets hugely repetitive. The WWII section is pretty bland, confusing and hugely repetitive. Most of the time, you'll feel (or have to in order to survive) like speed running throughout the level. Not to mention the game overloads on how well the enemies can kill you, the NPC count and just how confusing the level layouts can be. But what does annoy me, it how weapons lack impact after the first world. Starfire gives players a rocket launcher, mini gun and plasma pistol. For the game only to give you modern weapons like a pistol and sniper rifle. Well, you’d just use the cool sci-fi weapons right throughout right?
The game does integrate new elements over the progression, but overall it doesn't feel as though it evolves with enough interesting ideals or ones that make sense. So you start off by collecting med-kits, pretty much as you expect, but this doesn't change over the course of the game at all and you'll see the same med-kits and armour pick up in every level. It could have been interesting to change this mechanic and bring in regenerating health at the later stages. This would have come in handy as the game gets so ridiculously hard and unfair to play with NPCs having pin point perfect accuracy and out numbering you 15-1. The finale is possibly the worst place to showcase this ill design flaw and worst off, you’re not really rewarded with a satisfying ending, or any reason for replaying it.
Bedlam does indeed give you a large number of set pieces which are creative and help implant the themes of the story, where as some don’t. Mentioned before the Unreal Tournament style boss battle and objectives are great but when you play a Pac-man style maze in first person, it’s a little annoying and very confusing to navigate in the first person view.
Bedlam sticks too much to the same design throughout, never to progress the game-play features. Being able to pick up items freely is introduced early on and could lead to some interesting interactions. Even though this kind of feature only came around in Half Life 2 in the early 2000's. Sadly it's not given much appreciation or use, besides not fitting into the overall theme as it's ill placed at the beginning. Plat-forming segments are also just awkward and the confusing level structures and spacious checkpoint systems will mean you’ll repeat certain areas too many times to bear. I could say this is a homage to early FPS gaming, but the controls or mechanics don't improve nor is it any fun at all.
The game does also have a problem with giving a strong story based experience with no cut scenes, keeping in fashion with early FPS. But as the game progresses and the narrative develops, you’ll be forgiven if you lose track as the game pushes for overwhelming NPC counts while characters are discussing vital plot points in real time gameplay. You’ll mostly lose track and miss them as your too busy trying to survive an impossible onslaught.
Bedlam has a great concept at its heart and an interesting collection of themes and game-play components for a refreshing look at the FPS genre. But the game falls flat with its repetitive nature, overwhelmingly difficult progression, lack of focus to engage us for its narrative and its lacklustre second and third act with under developed game mechanics.
A copy of Bedlam was provided by Redbadlam for Xbox One