8:11 PM
Ryan (Entr0p1k)
If you are looking for a game that is precise, mechanical and challenging, then Bulletstorm is not for you. But if you’re looking for a game with ridiculous weapons, over-the-top gore and enough explosions to sink a small continent, Bulletstorm is DEFINITELY for you. Bulletstorm uses a symphony of bullets and a paintbrush slathered in blood to compose a masterpiece crafted specifically for our desensitised and attention deficit culture. What a great world we live in.
Enter a world of space pirates, man-eating plants and deformed super mutants where anything can be used as a weapon. The player takes the role of Grayson Hunt, a hit man turned space pirate whose sole motivation is finding and killing the man who betrayed him.
Gameplay
Bulletstorm is built around multiple unique mechanics. The most obvious and most important is the scoring system. As you move through the world you encounter many creatures, and even more means of killing them. There are seemingly countless skillshots throughout the game that involve killing enemies in specific, creative ways. Each of these skillshots carries a specific point reward with them that contributes to the player’s overall score. When a specific skillshot is completed for the first time it gives five times the usual points; this encourages players to constantly be looking for new, creative ways to kill things. The points that a player accumulates can then be used as currency for buying new guns, ammo and upgrades.
The game also features the mechanics of the kick, slide and leash. These play a quintessential role in performing skillshots. When an enemy is kicked or leashed they enter a sort of bullet-time mode while the player remains in real time. This allows the player to direct enemies in a specific flight path or may simply be used to create easier targets. These moves can even be chained together for specific skillshots. The fast-paced theme of the entire game is created around these mechanics. Enemies far away? You can leash them one by one, or slide over and take them all on at once, the choice is yours.
Remember the days of the SMG and the pistol? Well those days are over because these weapons are ridiculous. The weapons in this game give more kills per bullet than any game I’ve ever seen. If your enemies are at long range you have a guided sniper rifle with interchangable explosive rounds; if the enemies are closer you have your trusty four-barreled shotgun. As if that wasn’t enough, every gun has it’s own set of skillshots so you always have new ones to shoot for.
Unfortunately, these unique mechanics bring with them unique glitches. I ended up inside walls a few times after sliding. This was easily fixed as I could usually just walk back. I did fall off the the map and had to restart the checkpoint a few times though. The real disappointment came when one of my teammates didn’t follow me, making a section of the level impassable and I ended up needing to start the whole chapter over.
Aside from glitches, there was not much to complain about. One small inconvenience was the game’s very strange sensitivity change between regular aiming and aiming down the sights (ADS). While ADS, your sensitivity is excruciatingly less than when you are aiming regularly. It was frustrating at first, but I did get used to it after a decent amount of time. The game is also very easy, even when set on the hardest difficulty. However, the game is not meant to be difficult, and this allows you to focus more on skillshots than on survival.
Video / Audio
This game is gorgeous. The visual style of the game feels oddly similar to Gears of War, but the color palette and map environment are completely different. It features astoundingly vibrant colors in blood, explosions and other effects, and gives the game a refreshing feel compared to the dark and grungy style of Gears.
The visual scale of the game is also very impressive. At one point in the game, you have to outrun a gargantuan wheel that shreds up the landscape as it chases after you. The fluid way in which stunned enemies move through the air after a kick or leash is surreal and amazing. The effects associated with all of the weapons look fantastic, as do the enemies. The lighting and the textures throughout the game are extremely good. It really is a very polished and beautiful game.
The music in this game acts even more to convey the overall feeling of epic, if you stop shooting for 2 seconds and listen anyway. The audio is something that may be overlooked due to the almost non-stop action of the game, but it plays a large role in the cinematic feel of the game.
Story
This game has a great story. It really needs to in order to succeed, as this game is purely a single player experience. Despite what you may have heard on Fox News, the story actually has a solid moral theme and multidimensional characters. (You should never believe what you hear on Fox News.)
The entire premise of the story is that an elite team of assassins discovers that they are not killing war criminals and drug lords, as they have been told, but they are actually assassinating journalists and peace activists. They go AWOL on their commanders and must find a way off the planet, all while evading the assassins who are hunting them.
There is a point when your teammate points out that the assassins you are fighting are simply your replacements. This is a very powerful point to make in a day and age when many games go the “Nazi Zombie” route. (ie everything we fight is evil and must be destroyed) There is a sense of helplessness that comes from the team fighting something so much bigger than they are, and it is continuously reinforced by the dialogue.
But the dialogue is also hilarious. I have never laughed so hard during a game. The characters are very likable; they feel rich and multidimensional. They are much more memorable than the characters in Gears.
In Gears of War, the characters were very flat. Even though Marcus was searching for his (probably dead) wife, you never really felt sorry for him. He was big and musclebound and grunted a lot, and you never really saw a different side of him. Marcus never felt real. Gearbox has done a fantastic job addressing this in Bulletstorm and I truly felt empathy for the characters.
I thought of the dialogue as poetry masked under a layer of obscenity, if you are truly looking, it is very well written. If you aren’t then it’s just plain hilarious.
Content
Bulletstorm features three main gametypes: campaign, echo mode and anarchy mode. The online scoreboard and achievements make the player want to continue playing, but only to a point. Echo mode features sections of the campaign without any dialogue or cinematics. The idea of this mode is to get the highest score possible, but it is still almost identical to the campaign. Anarchy mode allows you to team up with your friends in a survival-esque gamemode. Again, although the maps have changed and you are fighting with teammates, this mode is very similar to the other two. When it comes down to it, all there is to do in this game is kill. The skillshots make this exciting, but after playing a while, it’s all the same and you are left wanting more.
Huevos Factor
I’ll be candid with this one: this game is awesome! This game combines the thrill and reward of killing creatively, beautiful effects and a good storyline to create something magical. Although this game is violent, it is much more than that, and deserves to be seen as such. My advice: buy this game. If you don’t have the money, rent it, because you want to play this game, trust me.
Enter a world of space pirates, man-eating plants and deformed super mutants where anything can be used as a weapon. The player takes the role of Grayson Hunt, a hit man turned space pirate whose sole motivation is finding and killing the man who betrayed him.
Gameplay
9.0 |
Bulletstorm is built around multiple unique mechanics. The most obvious and most important is the scoring system. As you move through the world you encounter many creatures, and even more means of killing them. There are seemingly countless skillshots throughout the game that involve killing enemies in specific, creative ways. Each of these skillshots carries a specific point reward with them that contributes to the player’s overall score. When a specific skillshot is completed for the first time it gives five times the usual points; this encourages players to constantly be looking for new, creative ways to kill things. The points that a player accumulates can then be used as currency for buying new guns, ammo and upgrades.
The game also features the mechanics of the kick, slide and leash. These play a quintessential role in performing skillshots. When an enemy is kicked or leashed they enter a sort of bullet-time mode while the player remains in real time. This allows the player to direct enemies in a specific flight path or may simply be used to create easier targets. These moves can even be chained together for specific skillshots. The fast-paced theme of the entire game is created around these mechanics. Enemies far away? You can leash them one by one, or slide over and take them all on at once, the choice is yours.
Remember the days of the SMG and the pistol? Well those days are over because these weapons are ridiculous. The weapons in this game give more kills per bullet than any game I’ve ever seen. If your enemies are at long range you have a guided sniper rifle with interchangable explosive rounds; if the enemies are closer you have your trusty four-barreled shotgun. As if that wasn’t enough, every gun has it’s own set of skillshots so you always have new ones to shoot for.
Unfortunately, these unique mechanics bring with them unique glitches. I ended up inside walls a few times after sliding. This was easily fixed as I could usually just walk back. I did fall off the the map and had to restart the checkpoint a few times though. The real disappointment came when one of my teammates didn’t follow me, making a section of the level impassable and I ended up needing to start the whole chapter over.
Aside from glitches, there was not much to complain about. One small inconvenience was the game’s very strange sensitivity change between regular aiming and aiming down the sights (ADS). While ADS, your sensitivity is excruciatingly less than when you are aiming regularly. It was frustrating at first, but I did get used to it after a decent amount of time. The game is also very easy, even when set on the hardest difficulty. However, the game is not meant to be difficult, and this allows you to focus more on skillshots than on survival.
Video / Audio
| 9.5 |
This game is gorgeous. The visual style of the game feels oddly similar to Gears of War, but the color palette and map environment are completely different. It features astoundingly vibrant colors in blood, explosions and other effects, and gives the game a refreshing feel compared to the dark and grungy style of Gears.
The visual scale of the game is also very impressive. At one point in the game, you have to outrun a gargantuan wheel that shreds up the landscape as it chases after you. The fluid way in which stunned enemies move through the air after a kick or leash is surreal and amazing. The effects associated with all of the weapons look fantastic, as do the enemies. The lighting and the textures throughout the game are extremely good. It really is a very polished and beautiful game.
The music in this game acts even more to convey the overall feeling of epic, if you stop shooting for 2 seconds and listen anyway. The audio is something that may be overlooked due to the almost non-stop action of the game, but it plays a large role in the cinematic feel of the game.
Story
| 8.5 |
This game has a great story. It really needs to in order to succeed, as this game is purely a single player experience. Despite what you may have heard on Fox News, the story actually has a solid moral theme and multidimensional characters. (You should never believe what you hear on Fox News.)
The entire premise of the story is that an elite team of assassins discovers that they are not killing war criminals and drug lords, as they have been told, but they are actually assassinating journalists and peace activists. They go AWOL on their commanders and must find a way off the planet, all while evading the assassins who are hunting them.
There is a point when your teammate points out that the assassins you are fighting are simply your replacements. This is a very powerful point to make in a day and age when many games go the “Nazi Zombie” route. (ie everything we fight is evil and must be destroyed) There is a sense of helplessness that comes from the team fighting something so much bigger than they are, and it is continuously reinforced by the dialogue.
But the dialogue is also hilarious. I have never laughed so hard during a game. The characters are very likable; they feel rich and multidimensional. They are much more memorable than the characters in Gears.
In Gears of War, the characters were very flat. Even though Marcus was searching for his (probably dead) wife, you never really felt sorry for him. He was big and musclebound and grunted a lot, and you never really saw a different side of him. Marcus never felt real. Gearbox has done a fantastic job addressing this in Bulletstorm and I truly felt empathy for the characters.
I thought of the dialogue as poetry masked under a layer of obscenity, if you are truly looking, it is very well written. If you aren’t then it’s just plain hilarious.
Content
| 6.0 |
Bulletstorm features three main gametypes: campaign, echo mode and anarchy mode. The online scoreboard and achievements make the player want to continue playing, but only to a point. Echo mode features sections of the campaign without any dialogue or cinematics. The idea of this mode is to get the highest score possible, but it is still almost identical to the campaign. Anarchy mode allows you to team up with your friends in a survival-esque gamemode. Again, although the maps have changed and you are fighting with teammates, this mode is very similar to the other two. When it comes down to it, all there is to do in this game is kill. The skillshots make this exciting, but after playing a while, it’s all the same and you are left wanting more.
Huevos Factor
| 9.5 |
I’ll be candid with this one: this game is awesome! This game combines the thrill and reward of killing creatively, beautiful effects and a good storyline to create something magical. Although this game is violent, it is much more than that, and deserves to be seen as such. My advice: buy this game. If you don’t have the money, rent it, because you want to play this game, trust me.
Yeah, this game is epic.
Breakdown:
| Gameplay | 9.0 |
| Video / Audio | 9.5 |
| Story | 8.5 |
| Content | 6.0 |
| Huevos Factor | 9.5 |
| Overall | 8.6 |
Written by:
-Ryan
-Steve
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