Bad Day L.A. Review

In Bad Day LA, you’ll play the character of Anthony, a bitter, seemingly hopeless man who appears to enjoy being the way he is.  This all changes when a terrorist attack is launched on Los Angeles, unleashing a plague of zombies and causing a war between rival gangs, terrorists, marines and even the Mexican army.  Taking on the role of Anthony, it’s your task to make your way through Los Angeles and just survive this day.

Bad Day LA, at its heart, is a rather standard 3^rd person action game.  It is essentially very similar to McGee’s previous game Alice, in terms of its rather conventional run-and-gun game play.  “Run-and-gun” is certainly the proper description of the gameplay included, as you will find yourself slogging through corridors, alleyways, destroyed buildings and burning wreckage, firing round after round at hordes of terrorists, gangsters and the occasional zombie.

The game contains a threat level, which is supposed to regulate the level of panic around Anthony: the higher the threat, the more hostile the NPCs around him become.  Doing things like killing civilians, or just simply failing to lift a hand to help them, will result in negative smiley faces, which raise the threat level over time.  In playing through the game, I only had the level raised from Low to Guarded once, and, to be honest, I failed to see the difference.  I am assuming this was supposed to be some type of system where the higher the level the more hectic things became, similar to the Grand Theft Auto series.  Sadly, this seemed like a tacked on, gimmicky function which ultimately had no bearing at all on reaching the ending.

For a game so full of combat, I found the limited amount of weapons, coupled with the always scarce stores of ammunition, finally followed up with the sheer volume of re-spawning enemies, to be a tad too much.  While certainly the fighting is hectic, it never really attains a level of much fun.  The variety of enemies was also somewhat disappointing, with the exception of a few interesting and often entertaining end bosses.

The controls felt very non-responsive for a game played in a 3^rd person perspective.  In fact, with the exception of a few early jumping puzzles, the most to look forward to was navigating mazes.  (Trust me; a game with controls like this does not need many jumping puzzles.)  It’s possible to choose from one of four companions to assist Anthony – of course, by assist I mean do very little.  The only companion that I ever found helpful was Juan with his chainsaw, but the rest of your companions seemed to only be there to help advance the storyline, which again made me feel this was included as more of a gimmick than an actual feature.

The difficulty in Bad Day LA was sort of lopsided from start to finish.  I found the very first few parts of the game to be much more difficult than the later portions.  The enemies will swarm quickly, and if they have weapons you will find yourself dead within moments.  This constant necessity to reload the game was compounded by a rather long set of loading times.  In fact, if not for the amusing animations included in the loading screens, I am not certain I could have found the will to continue through.

One thing that I did enjoy was the inclusion of a few puzzle-solving areas.  While the majority of the missions involved helping a certain number of people or killing a certain number of enemies, there were a few interesting scenarios.  I found myself enjoying the early areas where the objective was to follow up on 9-1-1 calls for an ambulance tech; here, I was forced to find interesting and often twisted ways to assist people.  Some of the battles involving mini-bosses also force one to find ways to use the environment to defeat one’s opponents.  In addition, there were a few stages involving manning a heavy machine gun which helped keep the game fresh.

Now, you may notice that I spent the first part of my review discussing the formulaic and mind-numbingly repetitive gameplay of Bad Day LA.  The reason I chose to tackle this area first is that the other facets of the game are not entirely analogous with the gameplay.

The graphics in Bad Day LA are somewhat of a mixed bag, but I think this is more of a design choice than simply bad graphics.  The graphical engine is a kind of cel-shaded, cartoon-like engine.  Anthony has black dots for eyes and the rest of his body looks rather blocky, giving him more in common with game characters from the 90s than anything else.  In fact, the graphics in the game are locked in with the default selections, leaving very little in the form of actual options, short of inverting the mouse Y axis.  The special effects and the enemy models are also done with the same lack of polish, which in turn adds to the entire retro feel of the game.  I will give American McGee the benefit of the doubt and assume that these decisions were made intentionally and for creative effect versus a low budget.

Bad Day LA is truly a story with meaning.  It’s clear that this is American McGee’s response to the U.S. government in the post 9-11 world.  While he certainly makes the issue entertaining at times, for instance being assaulted at the airport by a large woman who wants to cavity-search Anthony, at other times it seems entirely too blatant a message.  While I enjoy games like Metal Gear Solid, which had a subtle message imparted in the game, McGee seems to assume that the gamers need an in-your-face explanation of what he thinks.  The large posters in the airport certainly seem to impart his message, which is obviously that our government is too intrusive and is ludicrous in its efforts to protect us.  While an interesting topic for debate/discussion, I found its inclusion in such a violent and twisted game to be a bit of an odd choice.

This is also not a game for those that are offended easily, as McGee’s creation runs wild with racial stereotypes offending nearly every group imaginable along both socio-economic and gender lines; nothing is truly sacred here.  There is even a part later in the game where Anthony drop-kicks a baby to safety.  The only problem with all of this is that it doesn’t really make the main character easy to identify with.  I think we all often feel like outsiders from time to time, or at least we think that our world is headed in the wrong direction, but none of us choose to act out in this manner.  Perhaps all of this was included to make us think, and, if so, he accomplished that with me.

Having said that, topping off at 6 hours of gameplay, with zero reasons to play through a second time, I have to question who will actually play this game long enough to see McGee’s creative genius shine through.  While I do not necessarily share McGee’s vision of the world around us, I do respect him for sharing it in an unorthodox manner, something for which he is known.  At the end of the day, however, this is about gaming and that is where Bad Day LA disappoints.

A great game idea and an interesting story and scenario are not all that is required to make a fun game, yet that’s mostly what Bad Day LA has going for it.  While McGee is absolutely worthy of the praise people heap upon him, he has allowed a game which fails to impress on nearly all levels to be released with his name on it.  I cannot score a game highly based upon creativity and, therefore, even at a retail price of $29.99, I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to others.  Sadly, the sum of its parts equals a highly disappointing experience.