0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bedlam

        

Bedlam is an isometric action shooter with the game set in a futuristic sci-fi setting featuring mechs. The game was developed by Welsh developers Mirage Technologies and published by GT Interactive Software.

The game released on the Playstation on the 4^th of July 1997, and released exclusively in Europe. In addition to the Playstation release of the game, it also released on DOS, Mac and Windows, the game released first on these platforms in 1996.

Notable people who worked on this game Andy Clark who provided Additional Programming for the game, went on to work on Battlefield 2 Modern Combat in 2005, working on the System and Tools Programming. He was the Tools Programming Lead for Need For Speed Shift in 2009, more recently he was the Lead Tools Programmer on both Project Cars games.

Mike Bareham who was the worked on the Game Design moved to work on the Lego games in 2011, where he worked as one of the Lead Designers for LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, he has also worked on a Lego Harry Potter game, Pirates of the Carribean, Lego City Undercover and most recently as Senior Game Scripter for the video game adaption of The LEGO Ninjago Movie.

 

Visually the game looks very similar to the Syndicate series, as well as with its isometric perspective. The simple aim of the game is to destroy everything hostile that crosses your path, as the player and their three robot squad members tear their way through the mostly destructible levels.

Controls for the game are pretty simplistic, with the D-Pad used to move your characters around, when it comes to firing the weapons of your robots, the game had four direction firing, with each of the face buttons corresponding to a direction, with the triangle button for firing upwards, the X button for firing down and the Square and Circle buttons for firing left or right.

The player is able to switch between weapons using the shoulder buttons all four of the shoulder buttons work for this, during the course of a level, the player will be able to go up to certain items, which the game will give a description of.

For Example a laser fence, following the item name is a short description, in the case of the laser fence it tells the player that it is resistant to all of your weaponry and can only be deactivated by shooting the specific generator that powers the fence.

 

The right of the screen is your robots health bar, below that and running down the entire length of the screen is your weapons inventory, with a total of seven slots, showing a small image of the weapon and alongside that is the total number of rounds of ammunition you have for that particular weapon.

The game features power ups which can be picked up throughout the level, the power ups in the gave come in a total of four categories these bonuses have an immediate effect when picked up, the first being speed, which provides a limited higher speed of movement for your character. 

Energy which will top up your robots energy bar, shield which provides a limited shield capability for your robot. The final power up is called Bonus, this generated a score or cash bonus for the player.

The game features a map function which can be accessed by pressing the select button, this however does not being up a map that is useful to the player, rather a small square isometric map appear in the upper right corner of the screen, this is by far too small to be of any use.

When starting a mission you can choose the weapons loadout for your robot, this can be done automatically as well, your are able to sell your weapons and purchase additional ammo, you may well have to sell some of your aquired weapons in order to purchase ammo if your balance is on the low side.

Set in a future where humanity has colonised beyond the solar system, however these colonies are under attack and are becoming infested with Bio mechanical life forms. These life forms threaten the very existence of the human race, the player takes on the role of a mercenary in command of a team of crack military robots who are without remorse or mercy and destroy the bio mechanical threat.

 

Critic reviews for Bedlam are limited, with this being a European only releases game, the ones that we do have range from a decent one to a couple of above average scores. As usual though we will start with the best which comes from NowGamer.

The NowGamer reviewer scoring the game at a decent 78, the reviewer comparing the game to Syndicate, calling it a simpler and smaller game but with plenty of death dealing, which the review found made the game fun for a while, concluding though they recommended waiting for Syndicate Wars then deciding if you should buy this game.

The next review on offer, the next two in fact we head over to Germany, the first which comes from Mega Fun who scored the game at a 68. With the reviewer finding the shooting to be fun and also praised the wide range of equipment and the detailed landscape where almost anything can be blow up.

The reviewer did however have some criticism of the game, the first being the missing transparency function, with the visually disturbing walls and objects can be "clicked away", so that a clear movement is possible. They also found some extra work could have gone into, the reviewer finding the map could use some extra lessons in terms of visibility and accuracy, as it initially difficult to find

Lastly we have Video Games who scored the game the lowest at an above average 66, the reviewer finding Bedlam to be a bit jerky on the Playstation, but remains quite playable, more so than on Pentium 75. The reviewer calling the game one of the most detailed games ever and a perfect game to vent off with.

The review did however find that the games fun was limited by a limited and expensive ammunition costs, as well as the enemies being able to hit you while you are unable hit them yourself, one major issue the reviewer mention here is enemies shooting through walls..

 

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who unsurprisingly don’t stock this European only release, so we head over to Retrogames.co.uk who also sadly don’t stock the Playstation version of the game, they do stock the PC version which is priced at £9.

Heading over to eStarland.com it is the same story, again this is unsurprising with eStarland being a US based company, the same goes for Amazon.com, who also don’t have the Playstation version listed, they do have the PC version with a new copy of this available for just over $5.

With the lack of copies on offer we head over to the co.uk version of the site where we do strike lucky, however copies of this game are very limited with just 3 available at the time of writing. The first copy is the only used copy on offer, this copy is in very good condition and comes complete, and is priced up at £17.21. This converts to $24.31 in the US, while in the Euro Zone countries it will set you back €19.50.

The final two copies that are currently on the market are both new copies of the game. These take a significant rise in price compared to the used copy with prices starting at £54.03 once shipping has been added in. The second new copy that is available will set you back even more at £62.86, once shipping costs have been factored in.

Written by

P J Gibbon