In his discussion with me, Baris Tarimcioglu mentioned that body cam games sold really well, with Baris telling me he “used them to pay the bills last year!” specifically. Baris suggested that these games were very popular, explaining why Playstige Interactive has released multiple body cam games.

Today’s piece seeks to examine BodyCam GangZone. This is a first person shooter game. Baris told me he felt that shooter games today are vastly different from a classic such as Doom. How does BodyCam GangZone differentiate? Let’s hash out pros and cons, starting with the former. As a bit of a ‘disclaimer’, I have never actually played a body cam game before. Plenty of first and third person shooters, but not one with quite the same perspective.

It is structurally sound

Even AAA studios like Activision have had difficulty creating a bug free game. Of course, there isn’t anywhere near as much going on in this game compared to a more traditional, company produced shooter game. But, it’s still worth noting that, at least I couldn’t find any bugged areas or game-destroying glitches in this game. I had a lot of praise for Daylight Dread, also made by Baris Tarimcioglu, but that game had at least one very buggy, quirky area in the game to look out for. BodyCam GangZone seems safe of such a flaw.

It is very authentic

In a traditional shooter, like Call of Duty, the camera moves along with the player’s weapon, making for very crisp, smooth and satisfying gameplay. True to the niche it was aiming to fill, the perspective of this video game is through a body camera. Accompanying motions and visuals are a little wonky, but deliberately so in a manner that definitely satisfies what this game was trying to do. It does make aiming with a weapon out to take some time getting used to.

Sustained Gameplay

In my Fluxteria review, I mentioned how that game’s Survival Mode felt more like a hide-and-seek mode. Elements of that do exist in this game, but it takes a big step towards feeling like an actual Survival mode. The player is meant to survive waves and waves of Gang Members. As far as I can tell, these waves come endlessly, prompting the player to see how long they can survive.

The player’s vehicle is refilled with resources at the end of every wave, making it a pretty fair overall sequence.

There are a few cons worth touching base on. Let’s discuss them below.

The game is extremely barebones

Of course, as previously mentioned, I’d never played a BodyCam game before. After doing so here, I’m left wondering – what was the point? The only thing the player has to do in this game is choose one of three maps, which are each realistically close to the same, and spend their time shooting Gang members. The quantity of Gang members per wave changes based on the map, but otherwise remains the exact same each wave. The Gang members never become stronger or smarter as the game goes on either, so there’s not really any difference between killing Gang members on Wave 10 compared to Wave 1.

Sound Quality

Word of warning: turn your volume and/or headphones or speaker down way, way low before booting up this game. While the music itself in this game is fine enough, the volume is bizarrely all over the place. In the game’s main menu, it is incredibly loud, before reducing to a soft whisper during actual gameplay.

On that note, I’m inclined to give this game a C. There’s nothing particularly bad about this game, and I can theoretically imagine someone climbing waves and seeing how deep they can possibly go. But at the same time, nothing about this game necessarily stands out. It is a very, very basic shooter game that is a little more than a tech demo, but not by much. While I wouldn’t necessarily steer anyone away from this game, as it is a fairly cheap $3 at the time of writing, I also cannot truly say I’d recommend it to anyone or for anything in particular.

Baris Tarimcioglu and Playstige Interactive did concoct a second BodyCam game titled BodyCam Zombie Waves. I do plan to give that a shot, but if it’s the same premise and execution as this game only with zombies, there just isn’t much to write about warranting a review. How did this game supposedly pay the bills for Baris? Perhaps Zombie Waves will paint a clearer picture.

If you’d like to take a look at yours truly blasting my way through waves in this game to get an idea of what the game is like, you can find my playthrough of this game here