Review: Bulletstorm

[JeanLuc761]

What exactly do you mean by "fun". Were all those serious shooters like Modern Warfare 2 not fun. You gave them high scores so you must have thought so. A game can be fun and serious. Just take a look at the first Half-Life or Bioshock. They were fun and they had more to them than a shouty man with sideburns kicking people.

Methinks you might have missed the point. Nobody is saying that serious shooters can't be entertaining, but there is a very distinct difference in how a game like Bulletstorm defines "fun."

Serious shooters get their entertainment value from being realistic, tactical affairs (though I'll admit that most of the Call of Duty players I've encountered throw tactics out the window).

Non-serious shooters (Bullestorm and Serious Sam, for example) get their entertainment value from pure, cathartic mass-murder. The story is usually ridiculous, it doesn't bother with the potential moral implications of your actions and it doesn't often present itself as "intelligent." That's not to say that the gameplay can't be extremely smart, as Unreal Tournament would gladly prove otherwise.

We have seen an onslaught of "serious" shooters over the last 5-6 years, and while they can be perfectly great games (I love you Half-Life 2), the glory of the "wacky" shooter has fallen by the wayside. This year is definitely heralding their return (Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem and Serious Sam 3? Holy shit), and I couldn't be happier. These games remind us that a game doesn't have to have a complex story and tactical gameplay to be entertaining: sometimes all you need is to kill everything that moves.



...this post turned out a lot longer than I expected.

 

[qbanknight]

Downloading off Steam as we speak, fun times are here again

 

[Palademon]

Unfortunately, due to the internet, Bulletstorm is not the first time I've seen a mixture of Dicks and Tits. I repeat, seen, not heard.

 

[Falcondynamite]

Not necessarily true on the bottom line, sadly because all anybody own on my street is rockband and Call of Duty Black ops... I'm already pretty alone.

 

[qbanknight]

What exactly do you mean by "fun". Were all those serious shooters like Modern Warfare 2 not fun. You gave them high scores so you must have thought so. A game can be fun and serious. Just take a look at the first Half-Life or Bioshock. They were fun and they had more to them than a shouty man with sideburns kicking people.

Methinks you might have missed the point. Nobody is saying that serious shooters can't be entertaining, but there is a very distinct difference in how a game like Bulletstorm defines "fun."

Serious shooters get their entertainment value from being realistic, tactical affairs (though I'll admit that most of the Call of Duty players I've encountered throw tactics out the window).

Non-serious shooters (Bullestorm and Serious Sam, for example) get their entertainment value from pure, cathartic mass-murder. The story is usually ridiculous, it doesn't bother with the potential moral implications of your actions and it doesn't often present itself as "intelligent." That's not to say that the gameplay can't be extremely smart, as Unreal Tournament would gladly prove otherwise.

We have seen an onslaught of "serious" shooters over the last 5-6 years, and while they can be perfectly great games (I love you Half-Life 2), the glory of the "wacky" shooter has fallen by the wayside. This year is definitely heralding their return (Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem and Serious Sam 3? Holy shit), and I couldn't be happier. These games remind us that a game doesn't have to have a complex story and tactical gameplay to be entertaining: sometimes all you need is to kill everything that moves.



...this post turned out a lot longer than I expected.

Personally, what I think is making Bulletstorm fun is the fact that it isn't taking itself seriously unlike CoD, Halo, Killzone, and Epic's own Gears series. These games are all very competent and technically good games. There's even fun gameplay in each of them. But these games are uber-macho power fantasies that consider fancy themselves as the greats of science fiction or war-time stories.

Bulletstorm, on the other hand, considers itself an uber-macho power fantasy with its tongue firmly in cheek. It reminds me of the works of Edgar Wright (specifically Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). Both of those films involve seriously horrific situations, but they up the insanity and ridiculousness to the annals of parody. What they are, are simply Black Comedies. And that's precisely what Bulletstorm is. A loud obnoxious game with serious undertones making fun of loud obnoxious games who take themselves way too seriously

 

[jonyboy13]

Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

 

[Fuselage]

Looks like a game that will hold me for the 3-4 months before LA Noire and Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[dbmountain]

This game is like the Burnout of FPSs

 

[Seneschal]

Judging by my not-so-hardcore gamer friends, this game is ridiculously appealing even to people that wouldn't touch hardcore console shooters with a rusty pipe over the internet.

They're female. And I'm an artsy snob. And we still all want this game.

 

[Marowit]

It sounds like a game I am definitely going to wait till that long-summer-lull rolls around to pick up.

I'll just pretend I'm watching an Arnold Movie, but instead of shouting at who'd I'd like him to shoot at, I'll pull the trigger myself.

I'm also really interested in finding out how linear the world is - what I mean is it more-or-less a corridor shooter like most of the CoDs or is it more of an open world experience (not a sandbox, but just sprawling levels)?

 

[Logie--bear]

I love everything about this game and it is pre-ordered, but I get the feeling dick-tits is going to be the new cake joke.

 

[TWEWER]

Actually, shitting dick tits have existed long before Bulletstorm came around.

 

[antipunt]

Excellent ending, haha. Appropriate song. well timed too

 

[no_RegretsYSL]

Solid review I appreciate it. However, when you do another review, go ahead and don't start off by calling everyone interested in this game a lifeless slouch. Makes escapist look bad, and even more uninviting.

 

[lacktheknack]

Ick. Count me out.

Bet you weren't expecting THAT, were you, Escapist?

 

[brodie21]

i should probably get this game

 

[McShizzle]

Mr. Pitts, you're having entirely too much fun. Probably not a popular man around the office just now.

 

[Moeez]

Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

The game gives you less points for doing the same type of kills consecutively. If you're creative with each kills, the points get labelled with "NEW", and you have a higher point for it. Kinda like in PGR/Burnout with the driving tricks.

And you don't get ranked up.

 

[bricklayerofd00m]

Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

They were making fun of the extra-serious, super-tough, man-up, military-styled attitude of that FPS, not of the ranking up.