Black Creators' New FPS Inspired by Lady Gaga, J.J. Abrams

[John Funk]

Black Creators' New FPS Inspired by Lady Gaga, J.J. Abrams

The creators of Black [http://www.amazon.com/Black-Playstation-2/dp/B0009351R0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278971446&sr=1-1] have unveiled their new FPS Bodycount, a title designed to "put the fun back in shooting" and partially inspired by pop singer Lady Gaga and Star Trek reboot director J.J. Abrams.


Last month, the senior designer on 2006's Black, Stuart Black (seriously), had some choice words to say about the current crop of FPSes - specifically, he called them "f*cking boring." [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98592-Black-Dev-Calls-Current-Shooters-F-cking-Boring] OXM revealed that Black would be heading up a new FPS for Codemasters - and that game is Bodycount.

Bodycount is a 21st-century love letter to what made old-school shooters so fun, Black told Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27570/Qamp_A_Codemasters_Reveals_Bodycount_Studio_Refocus.php?]. "We had this itch about this type of shooter we wanted to play, that we just couldn't buy. Our big headline is that we want to put the fun back into shooting - we want this game to be outrageous fun with a gun."

"From the jaw-dropping devastation caused by firing into enemies or shredding the world around you in a hail of bullets, Bodycount will crystallize that moment of pulling the trigger into an exhilarating sensory overload of action," said the game's executive producer Tom Gillo.

To be fair, given what we saw with Black, there's no question that Black et al know how to push hardware to its limits. But even so, it'll be hard work to stand out amidst the current crop of FPS games.

The interesting part, though, is that Black told Gamasutra that his inspirations for Bodycount included Lady Gaga's "revelatory" performance at the Glastonbury music festival as well as J.J. Abrams' recent reboot of Star Trek. I'm going to hope that he's speaking thematically, as in "How do you A.) how do you shake things up in an established medium, and B.) reboot a stagnant franchise/genre," personally. Because otherwise, I'm imagining a FPS where Spock and Kirk sing "Poker Face," and that's absolutely terrifying.

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[fix-the-spade]

Yes Funk it's terrifying, but imagine how satisfying it would be to shut them up with a thousand rounds of hot lead (preferrably with an Annihalator 2000 blasting out Don't stop me now). It certainly wouldn't be boring...

 

[wooty]

I can see the connection though, whenever I hear Mr Gaga's music I feel like going on a genocidal rampage too. Same goes for that 2 hour brain hemorrhage that was titled "Star Trek"

 

[dodo1331]

Someone make a video of Spock and Kirk singing Poker Face.

Now.

 

[Jamash]

Inspired by J.J. Abrams eh?

So can we expect an abundance of gratuitous phantom lens flares without light sources, in a FPS game which isn't supposed to appeal to fans of the genre?

 

[xHipaboo420x]

Black (one of the best FPS's of the last generation) + Lady GaGa (one of the best popstars of the current generation) = fantastically excellent game? I'm not awesomatician, but I reckon that looks about right.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

Lady GaGa bores me.
What now, developers of Black?

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I now envision this developer as the antichrist and shall shun all of his works accordingly.

[HEADING=3]Beware, oh heedless citizenry, for the path to ruination is named Bodycount, look upon it and despair![/HEADING]

This isn't hyperbole, I am completely serious when I say that I shall treat any missive from him as if I have just been handed a live viper. Admitting to liking She Who Will Not be Named is enough to classify someone as dead to me, but claiming to derive your inspiration in part from the harrowing utterances disgorged by her dread maw and paraded before the just in a grotesque parody of all that is worthy?

[HEADING=1]Blasphemy!![/HEADING]
[small]You might have noticed I have ridiculous levels of contempt for one of his two cited 'influences' (Hint: not J.J. Abrams).[/small]

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Ok, this will be awesome either way.
1) Most likely, the game will be hilariously awful, and we will thus have a new punching bag
2) In the 0.001% chance that they're actually on to something, it will be f-ing cool!

 

[razer17]

The interesting part, though, is that Black told Gamasutra that his inspirations for Bodycount included Lady Gaga's "revelatory" performance at the Glastonbury music festival as well as J.J. Abrams' recent reboot of Star Trek. I'm going to hope that he's speaking thematically,

The more terrifying thought is about the nature of Gaga's Glasto slip, where she showed some of what appeared to be a testical or something.
So what we're going to have is Spok singing Poker Face, and occasionaly flopping his man parts out. Maybe that will be the new bullet time.

 

[MR T3D]

spitscreen co-op for this game would be epic.
so he likes shemale music.
so long as its not prominent in the game (roughly as likely as a level on the enterprise..(though that would be awesome enough to cancel out said music)) or I can put on my own playlist, no problem here for me.

 

[Cody211282]

Inspired by J.J. Abrams eh?

So can we expect an abundance of gratuitous phantom lens flares without light sources, in a FPS game which isn't supposed to appeal to fans of the genre?

Yes you can, also there will be an alternate dimension/time travel in there somewhere, because J.J. Abrams cant make something without shoving that in there, and I hate him and everything he has done for it.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Inspired by J.J. Abrams eh?

So can we expect an abundance of gratuitous phantom lens flares without light sources, in a FPS game which isn't supposed to appeal to fans of the genre?

Yes you can, also there will be an alternate dimension/time travel in there somewhere, because J.J. Abrams cant make something without shoving that in there, and I hate him and everything he has done for it.

Mission Impossible 3. Not saying it was a wonderful film mind you, but it featured no time travel or alternate dimensions of any sort.

So what we're going to have is Spok singing Poker Face, and occasionaly flopping his man parts out. Maybe that will be the new bullet time.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE my brains.

 

[Cody211282]

Inspired by J.J. Abrams eh?

So can we expect an abundance of gratuitous phantom lens flares without light sources, in a FPS game which isn't supposed to appeal to fans of the genre?

Yes you can, also there will be an alternate dimension/time travel in there somewhere, because J.J. Abrams cant make something without shoving that in there, and I hate him and everything he has done for it.

Mission Impossible 3. Not saying it was a wonderful film mind you, but it featured no time travel or alternate dimensions of any sort.

Holy crap I had no idea he did that, ok let me take that back anything Sci-Fi like he adds time travel in, honestly he runined Trek for me and I do hate him for it.

 

[UnravThreads]

So basically what this game'll do is look one way on the case, differently when you're playing single player and then differently again in multiplayer?
And it'll also be the subject of rumours claiming it has a penis.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

The interesting part, though, is that Black told Gamasutra that his inspirations for Bodycount included Lady Gaga's "revelatory" performance at the Glastonbury music festival as well as J.J. Abrams' recent reboot of Star Trek. I'm going to hope that he's speaking thematically,

The more terrifying thought is about the nature of Gaga's Glasto slip, where she showed some of what appeared to be a testical or something.
So what we're going to have is Spok singing Poker Face, and occasionaly flopping his man parts out. Maybe that will be the new bullet time.

You just killed my mind! D:

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

So...the inspiration is pop music and an action movie?

 

[Therumancer]

I can see where they are coming from to an extent, as an old school RPG fan I for example want a return of elements that made games fun to me. You know stuff that has fallen out of favor with the gaming media and developers like party creation, huge amounts of complicated stats and skills, and of course *gasp* turn based combat where you can choose specific actions for each of your characters without even having to play "beat the clock".

That said, I can also see where the skepticism comes from here. To be honest even though I'm not a major FPS fan, I never thought "Black" was anything special and it seemed to drop in price fairly quickly.

The comments about J.J. Abrams and Lady Gaga seem to me that the company is trying to pick a couple of names they feel are popular with the mainstream, and hope that by claiming such inspiration (without bothering to justify it) they will get people who like both of those people's works to get interested in the game. I'm sort of reminded of the "Mercenaries 2" promotional campaign where their site at one point had profiles on the Mercenary characters including their favorite music and such which seemed to be an attempt to hopefully draw in people who *gasp* liked popular music by drawing a weak connection.

Truthfully it seems that the plan here is to pretty much make the FPS genere even more brain dead than usual, and go back to the basics of shooting a bunch of guys in mazes with a gun in the middle of the screen, albeit with newer technology.

The thing is though that I can't see the appeal of that. Even with my own old school RPG desires, I'd want more than simple remakes with better graphics. I mean I'd like people to expand the format. Extensions of say being able to assign voice acted personalities to my characters (like Wizardry 8) with more interaction from the personalities I select with each other as they do things. More skills of course, and with better number crunching tech or course a more complicated and fulfilling game overall.

Even as someone who is not an FPS fan, I can't see how you can take that genere and go back to the basics entirely, because really if you add anything to it, it would defeat the point. I mean okay, the "whack a mole" gun play is a good point, but things evolved that way for a reason. You go back before that point and your going to probably wind up with even more simplistic and boring gameplay because honestly... how many times can you funnel a bunch of nazis (or whatever) into a doorway an blow them all away as they move lemming-like into your gunfire. Remove enemy cover use/evasion that leads to the gameplay they called boring, and that's pretty much what you've got left. It seems to be pretty much an all or nothing equasion. You either have enemies that you try and get to respond "Realistically" and stay alive to an extent, or you have a bunch of graphical paper targets.