Bedlam can be called a video game in the same sense that a cat walking over a piano can be considered a symphony. The very most basic elementsBedlam can be called a video game in the same sense that a cat walking over a piano can be considered a symphony. The very most basic elements are there, but what you really have is a glued together mess that is painful on the senses.
When I say the senses, I mean the majority of your senses, including the awful taste this game leaves afterwards. Let's start with the graphics, since this is the first thing in the game that will induce a horrendous migraine. I understand the developers are trying to pay homage to classic games (they drop enough names to make that abundantly clear) but do you also need to make this look like those games? I get that you enjoyed Quake II and Marathon: Durandel, but making your game have the same awful textures and nauseating movements that everyone moved on from in 1994 isn't really paying homage. The game is also incapable of having too many enemies on screen at once, which is truly a joy when the game spawns in dozens of enemies during battle sequences and the frame rate drops to an unplayable 10 or so FPS. Glitches also abound in this game, with enemies and objects just magically appearing and disappearing in front of you, enemies spawning inside of objects but able to shoot out at you, falling through floors, guns disappearing in your hands leaving you unable to shoot, and other wonderful things numerous people have reported. On top of all that, the game doesn't handle unlocking achievements very well. My entire Xbox One crashed and reset on about 3 separate occasions after unlocking achievements in Bedlam.
So the game looks horrible and can barely run, how does it play? Not very well at all. You're in a first person shooter, and the hit detection is absolutely abysmal. Enemies with rockets seem to hone in on you across the map, all the while you can snipe the same stationary enemy 3-4 times before the bullet actually registers. This is not very fun. The majority of the game encapsulates a lot of platforming in the true Xbox One spirit, and oh wow is the platforming terrible. Many of the jump pads used to teleport your character across the map for these platforming tasks will launch you straight into death if not taken at the proper angle, and the jumping is no spectacular prize either. Your health is collected through pickups, most of the time are never around when they're truly needed. The game is also not very shy about giving you a checkpoint when you have very low health either, which can certainly lead to some frustrating moments. In the true spirit of older titles, the checkpoints are horribly placed and spread far apart, so I would recommend making liberal use of the manual save mechanic, one of the very few highlights of the game.
The story is somewhat interesting, you play as Athena, a character in a video game traversing through other video games in an attempt to make it back into the real world. Some of the dialogue is legitimately humorous, and some pop culture references will get a chuckle out of some players, but none of it will stand the test of time and the gimmick gets stale rather quickly. The majority of the dialogue is simply talking about or referencing other games, such as Quake, GTA, Call of Duty, Half-Life, Halo, Saints Row, Lego Batman, etc. This is most likely here for the player to relate to, but all it really does is make the player wish they were playing some of those games instead of Bedlam. Even the levels and environments are poorly designed and graphically toned down remnants of Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls, Quake, and other games. Whenever you're not in those landscapes, you're in a "glitch" area of gray and purple that looks as poorly designed as all the other levels.
Bedlam, when first released, was put up for $20. Even the developers realized this was absurd, and slightly scaled it back to $16. This is still absurd for a game that looks, plays, and runs like a failed budget title from the years it attempts to pay homage to. The witty banter and moments of humor do not justify the price point, and everything else is an absolute train wreck. The graphics are awful, the movement is clunky, the gunplay is abysmal, and the game is not even worth a second look.
1/10… Expand
