Last week, I got to take a look at one of Baris Tarimcioglu’s pieces in the BodyCam neck of the woods. That game was pretty barebones and seemed to just be Baris’ entrance into the Body Cam niche. Baris once told me that these games sold well enough to pay the bills for him. I’m still not sure how BodyCam GangZone sold particularly well, but this week’s piece seeks to touch base on Baris’ second, more successful offering: BodyCam Zombie Waves. Unsurprisingly, Zombie Waves came out after Gang Zone. It seems Playstige Interactive Games, headed by the aforementioned Baris, may have reflected on Gang Zone and tried some new things here.

Last week, I said that if this game was the same as BodyCam GangZone only with zombies, I wouldn’t bother with a review. I have to say, in playing it, I did come to find that it was indeed the same thing but with zombies. So why have I chosen to write a review on it? I think this game has some potential and is a noticeable, marked improvement, from GangZone. Let’s talk about what it does well.

Zombies fit the niche better

When shooting random gangsters, the game felt rather clunky, sometimes not terribly responsive, and it made gunplay feel somewhat awkward. This was not helped by the body cam perspective making the actual gunplay slightly clunky. Replacing human enemies with zombies serves to massively correct the problem. The actual pace of play and core mechanical gameplay is the exact same thing, but zombies just make it better than random gangsters. The only thing I think this game could have served to do with the undead is make them move slightly faster.

Shotgun > Assault Rifle

The shotgun replaces the assault rifle from GangZone in this game, and it is so, so much better for an Indie shooter than a fully automatic weapon. It’s easier to properly handle and fits the pace of play better too. The shotgun would probably have made GangZone a little bit better all on its own.

It is worth a minor mention that, possibly due to a mis-translation, the game incorrectly lists the shotgun as ‘semi-auto’ when it’s actually a pump action weapon in this game.

Doom-inspired Gameplay

It’s pretty clear between the graphics of the zombies, the blazing soundtrack the player gets and the general ease of the game that Baris Tarimcioglu was inspired by Doom pretty largely when developing this game. He did incidentally mention Doom when talking to me about developing bodycam games, so it’s not surprising to see… Or hear, as the soundtrack does come pretty close to straight up emulating The Only Thing They Fear is You

Map Design/NYC

Baris’ film making career began in 1996 in New York City. It’s therefore pretty cool to have one of the maps in this game be based in NYC, with accompanying infrastructure that was actually pretty authentic. The NYC map is by far the best, most well designed map in this game, and is also a far cry superior to anything seen in GangZone too. It makes me wonder if the terrain itself was based on somewhere Baris used to work or inhabit in general, because it is surprisingly nicely detailed. The map is maybe a wee bit big, but it’s a pretty fun time all the same. The two other maps, Residential and Slums, do look quite nice too.

All in all, BodyCam Zombie Waves was a pretty nice surprise. It’s not quite a horror game in the same way Baris’ Daylight Dread is, but even still, it seems Tarimcioglu works particularly well when guns and zombies are involved. As such, where GangZone received a fairly casual C for a grade, Zombie Waves deserves a B. This is a much better showcase of the BodyCam subgenre from Playstige Interactive Games headed by Baris Tarimcioglu. I’m much more confident recommending this game to those who haven’t played much or any of a body cam game.