Bedlam: The Game by Christopher Brookmyre

 PlayStation 4
User Score
4.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 12 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 12
  3. Negative: 6 out of 12

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  1. LightNova
    Oct 21, 2019
    1
    This game had potential but it's ideas were so poorly executed that it became painful to play through.

    For a start, it poses as an FPS but hides a ridiculous amount of platforming. You'll spend ages wandering around near-empty spaces thanks to poor signposting and making needlessly difficult jumps. Fall and you'll usually be forced to restart the level. Enemies are generic and    This game had potential but it's ideas were so poorly executed that it became painful to play through.

    For a start, it poses as an FPS but hides a ridiculous amount of platforming. You'll spend ages wandering around near-empty spaces thanks to poor signposting and making needlessly difficult jumps. Fall and you'll usually be forced to restart the level.

    Enemies are generic and usually snipe at you with ridiculous accuracy. Given there's no regenerating health/shield, sparse open areas and no cover system, you'll spend a lot of the game either trying to counter-snipe with inaccurate weapons or having your limited health chipped away as you try to outrun auto-aiming bots. It feels horrible to play, even before factoring the terrible gunplay. The 'retro' excuse doesn't hold water here as it continues to feel clunky even when you get to the more modern weapons later in the game.

    The guns handle like a 'my first FPS' Unity project, with weak feedback, finicky aiming and all the power of a flaccid noodle. If you're going to focus on being a shooter you *need* to get this right.

    While it's refreshing to hear a genuine Scottish accent playing a big part of the voice-over work, a lot of the voice acting was really poor (admittedly most notably from the supporting cast). The sound effects weren't much better when they weren't missing entirely.

    Without spoiling any plot points, the final boss tasks you with bouncing on a jump pad over and over while firing at an inanimate object. Not exactly the climax players would expect but is just uninspired as every other boss this game throws at you.

    The game is low budget and it shows; it's buggy and crashed to dashboard multiple times. One comically ironic level tasks the player with "finding the glitch" when the entire level is covered in disappearing tanks, NPCs glitching through buildings and walls hovering in the air.

    Steadfast Interactive may be a small studio but there's no excuse for the rookie mistakes on display here (e.g. defaulting to restarting the level on death instead of loading a more recent save and forcing the same long unskippable cutscenes on the player when they die). And with games like Undertale and Dust: an Elysian Tail being made by a single person, being a small team isn't much of a defence.

    I can't quite explain how much this felt like a test of endurance - the promise of progressing away from the clunky shooting never being met. You run around repetitive environments in the hope that it will all be worth it. Jump through bland platforming sections that over-stay their welcome just to see what it's all building to. Only to find it's all smoke and mirrors; it ends unceremoniously with a non-boss and cuts to credits without even closing the contrived story.    … Expand
  2. Allthat
    Feb 20, 2016
    2
    This is a boring buggy excuse for a game that claims to be a nostalgia trip. The level design is god awful, the voice acting is terrible and the whole game is just very poorly made.
  3. kessler817
    Oct 27, 2020
    2
    Chapter 4 is where frame rates drop and the GPS aspect becomes a joke even on "Easy". If you're getting paid to play this game, give it a go. Otherwise, save your money.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
53

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 18
  3. Negative: 5 out of 18
  1. DarkStation
    Jan 27, 2016
    50
    All things considered, an interesting premise and good storytelling can’t make up for bad game design.
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  2. PSNStores
    Dec 21, 2015
    40
    Where the PS4 version of Bedlam could have been a trip down memory lane, it is instead a test of endurance. With so many other novel PSN games, I’m not sure this history lesson is worth the time investment.
    Read full review
  3. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Dec 16, 2015
    50
    The problem is it's not fun. [Christmas 2015, p.83]
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