It’s not been a particular easy day for Heather Quinn when you join her in her struggles. Firstly, she’s ended up in a litigiously safe knock off of Quake called Starfire. Secondly, she now has the body of a pixelated half-man, half-machine known as a Gralak and if that wasn’t enough to contend with, she gets dropped into a multiplayer arena only to be told to “get back to The Sims” by some virtual rage-addled pubescent teenagers. By the time Heather – and that means you – get around to sending them home to CoD, Bedlam has proved its consistent, razor-sharp wit.
Reimagining the story he started with his novel (um, also called Bedlam), Christopher Brookmyre returns to shape this version of events. Whereas the book focuses on the misadventures of Ross Baker, this time you’re dropped into the boots of Heather (aka Athena) to find out how she’s ended up in the gameverse, a place where the aforementioned world of Starfire rubs shoulders with the Medal of Honour inspired Death or Glory and Halo stand-in Planetfire. It’s like Wreck It Ralph written by someone who played Quake instead of Mario, but that simple description does a huge disservice to how well crafted Brookmyre’s worlds and characters are.
While Bedlam nails the writing, its gameplay can’t quite match up. When you’re dropped into Starfire, you’re meant to be in a ’90s era shooter but the game plays like a homage to a ‘90s era shooter. Fast movement, health packs and the ability to see bullets fizz past, meaning that the core strategy is ‘always keep moving’. Example time. When trying to defeat a boss early on, I thought I would be clever and hide behind scenery like I do in every modern game… only to be quickly overwhelmed and sent back to the checkpoint, arse in hand. But, when I ran about like a rabbit on speed, dodging fire and hammering the trigger like no tomorrow, I started to make a bit of progress.
However, the game never quite manages to match its ambition with the execution. When you jump out of Starfire into Death or Glory, the game still plays like a ’90s shooter. There’s a disconnect between what’s being described in the game and what is happening on screen. So the Death or Glory sections are described as a cover based shooter in game, but you don’t have the ability to take cover à la Gears. Enemies should be smarter, but they still just run to you and ask for a bit of laser or lead to chew on.
