Epic: Bulletstorm "Didn't Make Money For Us"

[Lord_Gremlin]

Bad marketing on PS3 (released simultaneously with Killzone 3 and fuckhead Cliffy B. decided that it was smart to insult Killzone 3 in the interviews - see what happened), GFWL on PC (basically no-buy for vast majority of PC players). And on 360 it was all about Gears 3 beta code. Epic themselves gave this impression that this game was some cheap by-product.
It is a fun game though, although with problems. Yahtzee nailed it in Zero Punctuation. Who the hell thought it would be ok to have enemies run away and hide behind walls? It's boring!
Multiplayer - and believe me, I have all trophies and still play it on PS3 with friends - is actually awesome.
There is 1 problem with multiplayer actually. You HAVE to play it with a friend and always use headset. With random people it's just unplayable shit. It's the only game I know where playing with friend is basically required, and matchmaking is not viable at all. Private matches work fine, while match-made matches are plagued with disconnects and errors.

Too bad new patch on PS3 introduced skillshot glitches in anarchy and glitch which won't allow anyone equip any helmet or animation except for default. There, your DLC and Final Echo rank goes to shit. I wonedr if PC/360 got same problem in latest patch.

P.S. I don't like competitive MP. Still play Killzone games in MP, but only because I'm a big fan of Helghast, not because I like MP.

 

[Metalrocks]

pretty much agree that not every game needs a damn MP. always have to shake my head why people say that a game is bad because it has no MP or not particularly a good MP. the Sp is very solid and bulletstorm is mend to be sarcastic which makes it so funny. especially the characters.
i do agree that GfWL sucks, i really hate them, but once you manged it, you pretty much can enjoy a game.

 

[soulasylum85]

i still really want to play it but i refuse to buy it for anything more than $25 since it is such a small game

 

[Andy Chalk]

I guess I may as well toss my thoughts on the pile. I haven't picked up Bulletstorm yet, despite my love for PCF; I was extremely interested pre-launch but shooters are so dime-a-dozen these days that I didn't want to spring for a triple-A release without some idea of what I was getting into. But the delayed PC demo, combined with the fact that a good friend who did pick it up on launch day was very surprised about what he got (Cover? Regenerating health? From the Painkiller guys? wtf) put the idea on the back burner, where it sits to this day. It's not just a question of price, but also of priority; dropping a demo more than a month after release makes it almost entirely irrelevant. So at this point, I'll pick it up when I see it cheap somewhere, but in terms of "must play" games, I've moved on.

I think Epic did a lot of things right with Bulletstorm, but launching a brand-new IP in a crowded genre is a tricky business at the best of times. I would have enjoyed seeing it turn into a bit but I can't say I'm all that terribly surprised that it didn't.

 

[AgentCooper]

I bought Bulletstorm on my birthday in March and HAD tons of fun with it. I enjoyed mostly the combo kill system and the weapons all felt so genuine in terms of control and feel.

I so hate to see it sold under the benchmark.

Also, If you had to use cover at all then you should be killing faster and using the power slide. Not to mention the leash thump acted as a emergency help tool.

 

[Treblaine]

I guess I may as well toss my thoughts on the pile. I haven't picked up Bulletstorm yet, despite my love for PCF; I was extremely interested pre-launch but shooters are so dime-a-dozen these days that I didn't want to spring for a triple-A release without some idea of what I was getting into. But the delayed PC demo, combined with the fact that a good friend who did pick it up on launch day was very surprised about what he got (Cover? Regenerating health? From the Painkiller guys? wtf) put the idea on the back burner, where it sits to this day. It's not just a question of price, but also of priority; dropping a demo more than a month after release makes it almost entirely irrelevant. So at this point, I'll pick it up when I see it cheap somewhere, but in terms of "must play" games, I've moved on.

I think Epic did a lot of things right with Bulletstorm, but launching a brand-new IP in a crowded genre is a tricky business at the best of times. I would have enjoyed seeing it turn into a bit but I can't say I'm all that terribly surprised that it didn't.

Very much in the same boat as you.

Sure, it's a New IP. But somehow it's the same old stuff we've seen 100 time before and stuff we really don't want to see any more of.

 

[Cerrax]

Bulletstorm is a completely generic game with random wacky melee moves to spice up the action. It is not interesting and the inclusion of these moves is clunky at best. The sliding does not work on any even slightly uneven terrain. The whip/leash/whatever did a lot less than I thought it would. I was hoping for a gravity gun-type experience where you can pick enemies up and whip them around. No such luck. The shooting people in mid-air and flinging them into random obstacles was fun for about 2.5 seconds, until I realized that all of the the "hazards" are just pre-scripted death traps and not real physics-based killings. If you want creative gun play that actually makes sense and works properly, play Half-Life 2 with the gravity gun and the crossbow.

Chair Entertainment is the best part of Epic Games. They have not made one bad game yet (Undertow, Shadow Complex, Infinity Blade) and their lead designer has an excellent design philosophy: First the game has to play good, then it has to look good.

 

[Metalrocks]

I guess I may as well toss my thoughts on the pile. I haven't picked up Bulletstorm yet, despite my love for PCF; I was extremely interested pre-launch but shooters are so dime-a-dozen these days that I didn't want to spring for a triple-A release without some idea of what I was getting into. But the delayed PC demo, combined with the fact that a good friend who did pick it up on launch day was very surprised about what he got (Cover? Regenerating health? From the Painkiller guys? wtf) put the idea on the back burner, where it sits to this day. It's not just a question of price, but also of priority; dropping a demo more than a month after release makes it almost entirely irrelevant. So at this point, I'll pick it up when I see it cheap somewhere, but in terms of "must play" games, I've moved on.

I think Epic did a lot of things right with Bulletstorm, but launching a brand-new IP in a crowded genre is a tricky business at the best of times. I would have enjoyed seeing it turn into a bit but I can't say I'm all that terribly surprised that it didn't.

i see your point and thats fine. just like to state that i personally, hardly spend any time behind cover. if then only against some snipers which you encounter 2-3 times in the entire game or when it says "take cover" because i was close to death.
im not a fan either of the regenerating health but the game as such is still fun to play. maybe one day when you see it cheaper you can get it. as a shooter as such, it is still solid.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Marcus was the badass, Dom was the one with something to whine about, Cole was the pottymouth, and Baird was the cynical asshole. Try to mesh those into one character, and you get Grayson Hunt.

Even his name, Grayson Hunt, sounds like a dirty spoonerism.

Cliff Blezinsky's sticky finger marks are all over Bulletstorm, what he did to PCF makes me despair for this industry. Epic games seem to have entirely ridden on the popularity of Painkiller without making any attempt to capture and expand on what people actually liked about that game!

They did the same thing with DNF, with jokes like "Power armour is for pussies" in a game where your health recovers by running away and hiding. Exactly like power armour! And the 2 weapon limit, it was just another bloody halo clone! Instead of being actually what it claimed to be.

DNF had a legacy to live up to, and it would probably get a bit better reception if it did so better. I guess that's the same with Bulletstorm, but to a lesser degree. We were all expecting a glorious return to Painkiller (which actually shared a few qualities with Duke 3D gameplay-wise). Instead we got a game that can't decide whether it wants to be a cover based FPS like Call of Duty or an old school "Kill everything that moves" FPS like Painkiller. The main character shares the same problem. At least Duke has had a persistent and arguably loveable personality since Duke 3D.
The moral of Bulletstorm is "You can have one thing or another". If it was a cover based shooter, that's fine. If it was a fast paced run and gun shooter, also fine. Just don't try to mix them together, or you'll get an unbalanced mess.
Captcha was "face the music"
*faces music*

 

[Andy Chalk]

And just a few days after this post goes up, I am now the proud owner of Bulletstorm. Saw it marked down at Walmart this afternoon and while 60 bucks for Bulletstorm ain't happening, 30 bucks, yeah, I can do that. So now we'll see!

And this, I think, should serve as a lesson to Epic and the industry as a whole, although obviously it's not going to. Not every game is a full-pop, triple-A release, and sometimes you'll make more money by selling at a lower price. If Bulletstorm had been 30 bucks out of the gate, I'd have picked it up on launch day and I suspect a lot of other people would have as well. And maybe instead of talking about how it flopped, we could be talking about how the industry's new pricing model was proving so effective.

Anyway. Bulletstorm awaits!