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Bedlam

An ambitious and fascinating wander through gaming’s history, but one that can’t replicate the addictive gameplay of the forefathers it documents.
Bedlam Game Cover
68%Game Brain Score
story, gameplay
stability, grinding
75% User Score Based on 551 reviews
Critic Score 53%Based on 4 reviews

Platforms

PCMac OSPlaystation 4Xbox OneXboxWindowsPlayStation
Bedlam Game Cover

About

Bedlam is a single player shooter game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by RedBedlam and was released on October 13, 2015. It received neutral reviews from critics and mostly positive reviews from players.

"Bedlam" is a single-player Science Fiction Shooter game with a unique genre-jumping feature, based on Christopher Brookmyre's novel. As the character Heather Quinn, players navigate an interesting plot while experiencing up-to-date graphics and nostalgic gaming references. Despite some humorous elements and good mechanics, the game is very grinding and has several bugs.

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75%
Audience ScoreBased on 551 reviews
story117 positive mentions
stability31 negative mentions

  • Unique concept that takes players through various video game genres and eras, providing a nostalgic experience.
  • Engaging story with humorous dialogue and well-done voice acting, particularly from the protagonist.
  • Variety of weapons and environments keeps gameplay interesting, with fun references to classic games.
  • Gameplay suffers from poor mechanics, including clunky controls and inconsistent hit detection.
  • Level design can be confusing and repetitive, leading to frustration during navigation and combat.
  • Technical issues such as bugs and crashes detract from the overall experience, especially in later levels.
  • story
    282 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story is a mixed bag, with many players finding it engaging and humorous, often highlighting its unique premise of being trapped in a video game world. While some appreciate the clever dialogue and nostalgic references, others criticize the narrative for being clichéd or underdeveloped, with pacing issues and a lack of emotional depth. Overall, the story serves as a key draw for many, despite the gameplay being perceived as mediocre.

    • “The story is enjoyable.”
    • “The story is very well written and the general feel of the game is nice.”
    • “The story is fun and easy to follow, if a bit simple, but you'll have no problem progressing through.”
    • “The story is... I think based on a book, and not great.”
    • “The story is not very strong; there are spikes of dumb moments, turning into some kind of top-down thing, then making you fight through it.”
    • “The only part of this game I enjoyed, and the reason I forced myself to beat the game, was for the story, which really wasn't all that interesting to be honest, and the 'plot twists' were seen from miles away, since they're once again just old gaming clichés.”
  • gameplay
    171 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of the game is characterized by a mix of old-school first-person shooter mechanics and a humorous narrative, but it suffers from repetitiveness, poor level design, and numerous bugs. While some players appreciate the nostalgic elements and variety of weapons, many find the core gameplay tedious and lacking depth, often overshadowed by a more engaging story. Overall, the experience is described as fun yet flawed, with a strong emphasis on humor and pop culture references that may not compensate for its gameplay shortcomings.

    • “Awesome game with an interesting story and simple yet great gameplay.”
    • “The mechanics are basic FPS, think Quake or Unreal, but during the game you travel to different worlds and get to use a wide variety of weaponry which made the journey much more interesting and drives you to see what is coming up next.”
    • “Gameplay is quite fun.”
    • “Buried under mediocre, boring, tedious gameplay, 'where the fuck do I go' level design, missions that feel like chores, and a frankly ludicrous amount of bugs.”
    • “The gameplay never really evolves from the start though, and even the Halo levels play like you're in Quake.”
    • “Enemies are not particularly fun to fight against, and the gunplay and movement is clunky and dry; all in all, Bedlam does little to imitate the fine-tuned gameplay of the titles it parodies, let alone provide any real sense of mechanical quality.”
  • humor
    96 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is a mixed bag, with many players appreciating its clever references to 90s gaming culture and witty dialogue, while others find it cringeworthy or inconsistent. Some highlight the strong voice acting and comedic moments that provide a nostalgic charm, but others criticize the humor for being forced or falling flat. Overall, while the game has its funny moments and engaging narrative, opinions vary widely on its effectiveness and delivery.

    • “The sense of humor here is spot on, including hidden 'levels' that often offer some lore and comedic memes as well.”
    • “Playing Bedlam is like walking into the wildest dreams of a 90s PC gamer - it's a hilarious throwback to first-person shooter history, full of sneaky jabs to games past and present, and even so the plot is gripping and the characters unique and unusual.”
    • “Hilarious (and excellently voiced) dialogue, inventive and humorous levels, intriguing story, and most important of all, fun gameplay.”
    • “But what really keeps me from giving this another chance are the unfunny jokes and the stupid voice acting.”
    • “Constant sarcasm is not funny.”
    • “Whoever put the image macro things in there is super unfunny.”
  • graphics
    90 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game are a mixed bag, with many users appreciating the nostalgic art style that pays homage to classic FPS games, while others criticize the dated visuals and technical issues such as glitches and poor optimization. The game intentionally features a progression through different graphical eras, which some find charming, but others feel it detracts from the overall experience due to its lack of modern polish. Overall, while the graphics may not meet contemporary standards, they serve the game's retro theme and storytelling effectively.

    • “The art styles are outstanding and the game plays very well.”
    • “The graphics and gunplay in the early part of the game is very basic, but the humor of the situation and the voice exchanges between the protagonist and other game characters were enough to keep me amused and interested to see where things would go.”
    • “The beautiful graphics, the tear-jerking story, the otherworldly game mechanics—every single thing about this god-worthy masterpiece is sublime.”
    • “This game is time traveling through the game ages from JPEG 30x30 pixels wide textures to what Half-Life 3 will look like when it gets released.”
    • “The graphics are complete trash (crashes, black screens), the animations are also not very good (invisible hands in the ego perspective??!!), and the opponents are sometimes too strong even on the 'easy' difficulty level.”
    • “Seeing the game's minimal graphics, I wouldn't think this would be a problem, but this game is so poorly optimized that even on the lowest settings I'm experiencing lag and slowdowns if there's a large area or a large number of enemies.”
  • stability
    34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's stability is heavily criticized, with numerous reports of bugs, glitches, and inconsistent gameplay experiences. Players encounter issues such as collision glitches, disappearing objects, and unresponsive controls, which detract from the overall enjoyment. While some find the game's charm and humor worth the trouble, the pervasive technical problems significantly hinder its potential.

    • “Runs great and even the retro game sections look awesome.”
    • “So far, no glitches... well, nothing that isn't supposed to be there...”
    • “The game is good, great idea, plays well with no glitches.”
    • “The most unpolished, buggy, poorly written garbage I've ever played.”
    • “There is nothing glaringly 'wrong' with Bedlam, so to say, but the experience as a whole is marred with glitches, inconsistencies, and overall weak game structure.”
    • “The enemies sometimes jiggle and warp into or through objects; glitches resulted in my losing all of my ability to fight at least once in the final level where there are no decent autosaves.”
  • grinding
    20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, players find the grinding aspect of the game to be overwhelmingly tedious and frustrating, characterized by repetitive gameplay, uninspired level design, and unsatisfying combat mechanics. Many reviews highlight the excessive backtracking, poor inventory management, and a lack of engaging challenges, leading to a monotonous experience that detracts from the game's potential. Despite some redeeming qualities, the grinding elements are often described as a significant drawback, making the game feel like a chore rather than an enjoyable adventure.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “Buried under mediocre, boring, tedious gameplay, 'where do I go' level design, missions that feel like chores, and a frankly ludicrous amount of bugs.”
    • “What could have been a great jaunt through the history of gaming - and with a somewhat interesting premise - is instead a poorly implemented, basic, utterly tedious and boring (not to mention buggy) trudge through level after level of crappy combat.”
    • “The short: while the core ideas are great, the uninteresting and uninspired environments, terrible gunplay which never improves, ridiculously accurate and frustrating omniscient AI, and lousy jumping puzzles in a game that is incompetent at platforming, all add up to a tedious and frustrating game experience.”
  • music
    18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with some praising the ending credit music and the overall quality of the soundtrack, while others criticize the limited number of tracks and the lack of music during gameplay, leading to moments of silence. Although the soundtrack is noted for its ability to shift with in-game sections, many players feel it is insufficient and forgettable, detracting from the overall experience.

    • “It's sad because besides the awesome writing, the game had a lot going for it: good graphics, good music, good sound effects, great voice acting.”
    • “Simple and satisfying, great music too.”
    • “The soundtrack is mind-blowingly good and I’m actually sad I can’t find it outside the game.”
    • “The soundtrack is okay, shame there's only like 3 tracks.”
    • “Pretty much all enemy AI just stands still trying to shoot you, the cover-shooter levels leave something to be desired, and a lot of your time is gonna be spent just running around in dead silence, without enough music to fill the void.”
    • “There's almost no music outside a few particular sections, which was weird since I don't remember early FPS games being so quiet.”
  • optimization
    15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization has received significant criticism, with players reporting frequent frame drops and performance issues even on low settings, despite its minimal graphics. Disabling fullscreen optimizations can help mitigate some problems, but overall, the game struggles with lag and slowdowns, particularly in larger areas or during intense action. While the gameplay can still be enjoyable, the poor optimization detracts from the overall experience.

    • “Disabling fullscreen optimizations under the compatibility tab of the game's executable file helps prevent this.”
    • “Some optimization issues in big open areas drop the frame rate, but it's still playable.”
    • “Beware, though, as it has some performance and graphical issues and can be frustrating at times.”
    • “For a game coming out when it did with graphics like these, it's unfortunate to say Bedlam runs somewhat poorly. Optimization was done poorly as throughout the game I would experience infrequent, however quite noticeable, hiccups and frame drops of 20+ frames when using certain weapons. The rather badass-looking fire-shooting sword received roughly halfway through the game would cause frame drops no matter where I was.”
    • “Seeing the game's minimal graphics, I wouldn't think this would be a problem, but this game is so poorly optimized that even on the lowest settings I'm experiencing lag and slowdowns if there's a large area or a large number of enemies, which is absolutely crazy when I can run more demanding games at the same resolution with higher graphics settings.”
    • “Overall a thumbs up, but I was disappointed by the poor performance of the game.”
  • atmosphere
    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's atmosphere is highlighted by its intriguing cover art and engaging elements, such as the main character and humorous dialogue, which enhance the overall experience. However, some critics feel it falls short in capturing the essence of retro shooters and analyzing 90s first-person shooters effectively.

    • “Each time I look at its great atmospheric cover art, I'm always left with immense intrigue and thoughts of what could have been.”
    • “From the atmosphere of the game, the main character, the enemies, and the cheesy puns and jokes, it had me enjoying every minute of it.”
    • “Bedlam fails to create the atmosphere of retro shooters or to even properly analyze 90’s FPS games.”
  • replayability
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The helicopter game for Microsoft Excel offers limited replayability, similar to Bedlam, which is a short game lasting around 6 hours and lacks any significant replay value.

    • “The helicopter game for Microsoft Excel had about the same replayability.”
    • “Bedlam is only around 6 hours long with no replay value.”
  • emotional
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional aspect of the game is impacted by unexpected and jarring mechanics, such as sudden loss of momentum and erratic physics interactions, which can detract from immersion and emotional engagement. Players may find these inconsistencies disrupt the intended emotional experience, leading to frustration rather than connection.

  • character development
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development in the game is criticized for lacking depth, with attempts at humor often resulting in cringeworthy moments rather than meaningful growth or engagement with the characters.

    • “It tries to be funny and witty at times but ultimately falls flat on the humor and character development, ending up with cringey jokes about the gaming universe.”
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7h Median play time
7h Average play time
5-9h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 6 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Bedlam is a shooter game with science fiction theme.

Bedlam is available on PC, Mac OS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and others.

On average players spend around 7 hours playing Bedlam.

Bedlam was released on October 13, 2015.

Bedlam was developed by RedBedlam.

Bedlam has received neutral reviews from players and neutral reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its story but disliked it for its stability.

Bedlam is a single player game.

Similar games include Hellbound, Chaser, Alien Rage: Unlimited, Legendary, Forgive Me Father and others.