This review is solely based on the Singleplayer experience.
I should hate Bulletstorm. It neatly sums up everything I hate about modern games. It shouldn't steal five minutes of my time, let alone five hours. But then I kick a man-eating parasite on to a man's head and boot him into a wall of spikes and I think: dammit, I love this game.
Bulletstorm is a First-Person Shooter developed by People Can Fly (the makers of Painkiller) in conjunction with the more well-known Epic Games (who made Gears of War in case you didn't know). It was clear from early development stages that its emphasis was going to be on violence. That, of course, set the world on fire, with people openly declaring that the game was going to corrupt the world's youth. One psychologist even went so far as to claim that Bulletstorm would lead to an increase in rape, due to the abundance of sexual words and innuendos. Having played through the campaign I can confidently claim that I am just as innocent now as I was when I first started playing. Bulletstorm follows the events of the mercenary-gone-rogue Grayson Hunt and his ill-fated mission to seek revenge on the General that ordered him to massacre innocents, claiming that they were criminals. Hunt's drunken desire for revenge ultimately brings down both the General's ship and his own onto the surface of the planet Stygia. From there, you have to fight your way through throngs of crazed locals, as well as the General's army, in order to finally exact your revenge.
Nice sunglasses.
The core part of the game is, clearly, the combat. In this respect, Bulletstorm shines like no other. This is good because it'll shield the game against the problems I'm going to rake up later. The most important part of the combat is the 'Skill Shot' system, which rewards players for creatively killing enemies. Getting repeated headshots, for example, will only get you 25 points apiece but kicking someone into exposed wiring will you get you 100 points. This means that if you want to do well you need to examine your surroundings to determine how you can get the most points available. Points can then be spent at drop boxes to upgrade and unlock weaponry. The explanation for this is that soldiers are judged on their performance and rewarded accordingly. I can't think of a better way to make an army crumble from within but no matter. The only real problem with this is that, if you're somewhat creative, you'll gain points very fast meaning you can unlock most things very quickly. Towards the end of the game you'll be getting a lot of points and only spending a few of them on ammo, which is relatively inexpensive. On the whole, though, the Skill system keeps combat entertaining and prevents it from becoming boring. Your health regenerates very fast as well. Normally, this would be a downside in a game, but when the game puts so much emphasis on fast paced combat, it means you can get back into the fray very quickly.
When you need to do some damage, you have three main cards in your hand. Firstly, you have your arsenal of guns. These guns literally come in all shapes and sizes. In terms of gameplay, it's the same routine as any other FPS. You point your crosshairs at an enemy and hit the fire button until said enemy stops jiggling about. The beauty comes with tying it to the Skill Shot system. For example, with the basic machine gun (the first weapon you acquire) you are encouraged to shoot an enemy in the groin, causing them to collapse to their knees in pain, and then get a headshot after that. This rewards you with a Skill Shot named 'Mercy', for obvious reasons. There are seven unlockable weapons in total, each with an alternate fire mode (which also needs to be unlocked). The weapons vary in their abilities, one gun can fire chains with explosives on the end, which wrap around enemies and can be remotely detonated, while another is a Sniper Rifle, whose bullets can be slow-mo guided into enemies craniums (or groins, yep, it's a skill shot). My personal favourite is the Revolver, named the 'Screamer', which sounds mundane until you realise it can sever a man's head and arms with a single shot.
Secondly, you can call on your trusty boot. This is a boot that will put Isaac Clarke's boots to shame. Kick an enemy with it and they will momentarily go into slow-mo, being slowed by gravity, allowing for some precision shooting. Once that wears off however, they will fly for miles. This allows you to boot enemies onto one of the many environmental hazards that litter the game. My personal favourite tactic was to boot an enemy into the mouth of a carnivorous plant, leading to them being chewed up and swallowed. Lastly, but certainly not least, is your trusty leash, which you will call on as much as your boot. Its use is threefold: firstly, it can be used to grab and pull enemies over towards you* or onto hazards in front of you. Secondly, it is often used to create a path allowing you to progress further. Lastly, it is used to interact with the many drop boxes that are littered around. It is the Boot and the Leash that make Bulletstorm's combat so addictive. Many games have satisfying gun combat but very few allow you to leash someone over to you, stick an explosive chain on them and boot them back towards their friends like a flesh-coloured missile.
I hear the God of Thunder has similar boots.
Another point in its favour is its graphics, which are very well done. Although, this could just be my eyes adjusting to my new, bigger, monitor. In all fairness though, it is a modern mainstream game so good graphics pretty much come as standard. However, you are never really allowed to appreciate the graphics. The planet of Stygia looks to be a very beautiful place but you are often stuck traversing very linear corridors, often inside collapsing buildings full of enemies, so you can never really take a proper look. The nature of the combat also means that you go through areas very quickly, rarely stopping to take a look at your surroundings. It's only when the game stops throwing combat at you that you can appreciate how pretty it really is. One point in particular stood out for me. You're stranded on a metal platform, floating in an ocean. A tidal wave roars up and engulfs you allowing you to appreciate the nice sparkling water effects. Before it crushes you, that is.
Right, with the good points out of the way, let me move on to the two worst features of this game: the plot and the characters. The plot is very flimsy and serves only as a means to ferry you to new arenas of death. Two ships go down, your enemy lands at a distance from you, go find him. That pretty much sums up the complexity of the plot in Bulletstorm. Not only that, you repeatedly get betrayed by people that you clearly cannot trust, in what is one of the least surprising plot twists ever to be found in a game. I know that a game whose emphasis is clearly on the combat is not going to have a world-renowned plot but they could have at least made it interesting. The characters, however, are even worse. Hunt, for example, appears to possess two conflicting personalities. On the one hand, he's a drunken psychopath that clearly revels in the deaths of his enemies while on the other hand he appears to be a sympathetic commander that genuinely cares about the fate of his men, which is difficult to take seriously when he looks and talks like a bear in a man's clothes. His conflicting nature only serves to weaken the character, rather than strengthen it. What's worse, however, is how often people swear in this game. It's like the designers were worried that if a sentence didn't have at least one swear word in it then it would make the game seem too serious. The worst character by far is General Sarrano, whose every sentence contains at least three swear words and an insult. Every time he opens his mouth I want to force-feed him bars of soap. I'm not opposed to swear words by any means, but Bulletstorm uses them so often it isn't even funny anymore. All the characters are so flimsy and shallow that it just becomes irritating to listen to them. The only character I actually liked was a cyborg soldier called Ishi, because his lines were actually interesting, rather than regurgitated clichés and swear words.
In the end though, Bulletstorm redeems itself with the biggest plus point of all: replayability. The massive library of Skill Shots means that any one playthrough is going to be different from the others, as you try and find all the different ways of murdering people. Even if you get tired of replaying the campaign you can fire up one of the game's Echoes (essentially segments of the campaign separated out), which invites you to get the highest score you can and grades you on it. More and more of these echoes are being released as DLC so it is likely to keep you enthralled for quite some time. Even if you do get bored, it'll come in handy one day when you're angry and want some digital flesh to take your anger out on. So, in conclusion, focus on the violence and attempt to ignore the plot and dialogue. If you can do that, you'll have a whale of a time. If you can't, you can probably simulate it by kicking a person you hate off the side of a tall building.
Score: 7/10
Conclusion: The combat and replayability are perfect but make sure you have a pair of earmuffs ready for when the characters start talking.
*There isn't a Skill Shot for repeatedly leashing and booting someone to death. Sadly, no 'Human Yo-Yo's to be found.
I should hate Bulletstorm. It neatly sums up everything I hate about modern games. It shouldn't steal five minutes of my time, let alone five hours. But then I kick a man-eating parasite on to a man's head and boot him into a wall of spikes and I think: dammit, I love this game.
Bulletstorm is a First-Person Shooter developed by People Can Fly (the makers of Painkiller) in conjunction with the more well-known Epic Games (who made Gears of War in case you didn't know). It was clear from early development stages that its emphasis was going to be on violence. That, of course, set the world on fire, with people openly declaring that the game was going to corrupt the world's youth. One psychologist even went so far as to claim that Bulletstorm would lead to an increase in rape, due to the abundance of sexual words and innuendos. Having played through the campaign I can confidently claim that I am just as innocent now as I was when I first started playing. Bulletstorm follows the events of the mercenary-gone-rogue Grayson Hunt and his ill-fated mission to seek revenge on the General that ordered him to massacre innocents, claiming that they were criminals. Hunt's drunken desire for revenge ultimately brings down both the General's ship and his own onto the surface of the planet Stygia. From there, you have to fight your way through throngs of crazed locals, as well as the General's army, in order to finally exact your revenge.
Nice sunglasses.
The core part of the game is, clearly, the combat. In this respect, Bulletstorm shines like no other. This is good because it'll shield the game against the problems I'm going to rake up later. The most important part of the combat is the 'Skill Shot' system, which rewards players for creatively killing enemies. Getting repeated headshots, for example, will only get you 25 points apiece but kicking someone into exposed wiring will you get you 100 points. This means that if you want to do well you need to examine your surroundings to determine how you can get the most points available. Points can then be spent at drop boxes to upgrade and unlock weaponry. The explanation for this is that soldiers are judged on their performance and rewarded accordingly. I can't think of a better way to make an army crumble from within but no matter. The only real problem with this is that, if you're somewhat creative, you'll gain points very fast meaning you can unlock most things very quickly. Towards the end of the game you'll be getting a lot of points and only spending a few of them on ammo, which is relatively inexpensive. On the whole, though, the Skill system keeps combat entertaining and prevents it from becoming boring. Your health regenerates very fast as well. Normally, this would be a downside in a game, but when the game puts so much emphasis on fast paced combat, it means you can get back into the fray very quickly.
When you need to do some damage, you have three main cards in your hand. Firstly, you have your arsenal of guns. These guns literally come in all shapes and sizes. In terms of gameplay, it's the same routine as any other FPS. You point your crosshairs at an enemy and hit the fire button until said enemy stops jiggling about. The beauty comes with tying it to the Skill Shot system. For example, with the basic machine gun (the first weapon you acquire) you are encouraged to shoot an enemy in the groin, causing them to collapse to their knees in pain, and then get a headshot after that. This rewards you with a Skill Shot named 'Mercy', for obvious reasons. There are seven unlockable weapons in total, each with an alternate fire mode (which also needs to be unlocked). The weapons vary in their abilities, one gun can fire chains with explosives on the end, which wrap around enemies and can be remotely detonated, while another is a Sniper Rifle, whose bullets can be slow-mo guided into enemies craniums (or groins, yep, it's a skill shot). My personal favourite is the Revolver, named the 'Screamer', which sounds mundane until you realise it can sever a man's head and arms with a single shot.
Secondly, you can call on your trusty boot. This is a boot that will put Isaac Clarke's boots to shame. Kick an enemy with it and they will momentarily go into slow-mo, being slowed by gravity, allowing for some precision shooting. Once that wears off however, they will fly for miles. This allows you to boot enemies onto one of the many environmental hazards that litter the game. My personal favourite tactic was to boot an enemy into the mouth of a carnivorous plant, leading to them being chewed up and swallowed. Lastly, but certainly not least, is your trusty leash, which you will call on as much as your boot. Its use is threefold: firstly, it can be used to grab and pull enemies over towards you* or onto hazards in front of you. Secondly, it is often used to create a path allowing you to progress further. Lastly, it is used to interact with the many drop boxes that are littered around. It is the Boot and the Leash that make Bulletstorm's combat so addictive. Many games have satisfying gun combat but very few allow you to leash someone over to you, stick an explosive chain on them and boot them back towards their friends like a flesh-coloured missile.
I hear the God of Thunder has similar boots.
Another point in its favour is its graphics, which are very well done. Although, this could just be my eyes adjusting to my new, bigger, monitor. In all fairness though, it is a modern mainstream game so good graphics pretty much come as standard. However, you are never really allowed to appreciate the graphics. The planet of Stygia looks to be a very beautiful place but you are often stuck traversing very linear corridors, often inside collapsing buildings full of enemies, so you can never really take a proper look. The nature of the combat also means that you go through areas very quickly, rarely stopping to take a look at your surroundings. It's only when the game stops throwing combat at you that you can appreciate how pretty it really is. One point in particular stood out for me. You're stranded on a metal platform, floating in an ocean. A tidal wave roars up and engulfs you allowing you to appreciate the nice sparkling water effects. Before it crushes you, that is.
Right, with the good points out of the way, let me move on to the two worst features of this game: the plot and the characters. The plot is very flimsy and serves only as a means to ferry you to new arenas of death. Two ships go down, your enemy lands at a distance from you, go find him. That pretty much sums up the complexity of the plot in Bulletstorm. Not only that, you repeatedly get betrayed by people that you clearly cannot trust, in what is one of the least surprising plot twists ever to be found in a game. I know that a game whose emphasis is clearly on the combat is not going to have a world-renowned plot but they could have at least made it interesting. The characters, however, are even worse. Hunt, for example, appears to possess two conflicting personalities. On the one hand, he's a drunken psychopath that clearly revels in the deaths of his enemies while on the other hand he appears to be a sympathetic commander that genuinely cares about the fate of his men, which is difficult to take seriously when he looks and talks like a bear in a man's clothes. His conflicting nature only serves to weaken the character, rather than strengthen it. What's worse, however, is how often people swear in this game. It's like the designers were worried that if a sentence didn't have at least one swear word in it then it would make the game seem too serious. The worst character by far is General Sarrano, whose every sentence contains at least three swear words and an insult. Every time he opens his mouth I want to force-feed him bars of soap. I'm not opposed to swear words by any means, but Bulletstorm uses them so often it isn't even funny anymore. All the characters are so flimsy and shallow that it just becomes irritating to listen to them. The only character I actually liked was a cyborg soldier called Ishi, because his lines were actually interesting, rather than regurgitated clichés and swear words.
In the end though, Bulletstorm redeems itself with the biggest plus point of all: replayability. The massive library of Skill Shots means that any one playthrough is going to be different from the others, as you try and find all the different ways of murdering people. Even if you get tired of replaying the campaign you can fire up one of the game's Echoes (essentially segments of the campaign separated out), which invites you to get the highest score you can and grades you on it. More and more of these echoes are being released as DLC so it is likely to keep you enthralled for quite some time. Even if you do get bored, it'll come in handy one day when you're angry and want some digital flesh to take your anger out on. So, in conclusion, focus on the violence and attempt to ignore the plot and dialogue. If you can do that, you'll have a whale of a time. If you can't, you can probably simulate it by kicking a person you hate off the side of a tall building.
Score: 7/10
Conclusion: The combat and replayability are perfect but make sure you have a pair of earmuffs ready for when the characters start talking.
*There isn't a Skill Shot for repeatedly leashing and booting someone to death. Sadly, no 'Human Yo-Yo's to be found.
I did plan on writing more reviews but exams got in the way.