I'm going to take the mic here for a moment, readers, and tell you something personally: It has been fascinating to watch the development of Codemasters' FPS Bodycount. I originally posted the game's unofficial announcement early last year, saw a preview and talked to creator Stuart Black at last year's E3, saw the game in action after Black left the project and, finally, got to see and play it last week at this year's E3 conference.

Long story short, I've basically had a front row seat on the development of this one, and it's been very interesting to watch it develop over the past 16 months. Black's original vision was not much more than just a demo level, a slick future shooter with a snappy female voice feeding orders in your ear. And from preview to preview, that vision has been prodded and poked by other developers, growing up into the game Bodycount has become.

Unfortunately, much of what appealed in the initial vision has gotten a little muddied along the way. Some elements of that early demo are still in there (and there's a whole lot more besides), but Bodycount's gone from a lot of unique potential to a much more mundane reality.