forget the laws of physics
Before I start, I'd like to say "yes", it is possible to disable those annoying points popping up whenever you kill someone in an ingenious ways. Perhaps, there are a few who care about that, but I was constantly afraid that those points would mar the gameplay for me and ruin the immersion - which is sorta what happened with Borderlands. There is no way to disable the crosshair though.
Anyways, you play as vigilante turned space pirate. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that but they explain the reasons in the first 15 minutes of the game. Your character kinda looks like a raptor only with hair but at the same time he has a voice and personality, which is always welcome in shooters.
Still, you have no body and cast no shadow so still you are, for the most part, just a couple of arms floating around. Maybe I should spend the next 5 years of my life studying programing and video game designing so I could get a job with some gaming company and be in charge of creating legs and shadow for the character you play in a shooter. You do get to see your legs when you slide though; So annoying...
The game is using Unreal Engine 3 which is considered outdated by many, even though it does the dynamic lightening thing, it's seems a bit too stale, the fire looks really outdated, the textures look like they are stacked on top of each other, plus I'd say that the physics need a little work. They used the same engine for Gears of War 2 as well the Singularity game, which wasn't for my liking to say the least. Even the electric leash you use in the game is sorta reminiscent of the hacking tool in Bionic Commando as well as the device you were wearing in Singularity. What's annoying though is that even if you disable auto-aim and aim assist, the leash would still auto-aim for you and pull your screen in the direction of the object being pulled. Both Singularity and Bulletstorm implement the slow mo sniper bullet time wherein you can actually guide your bullet towards the enemy.
Also, what I found unsettling is that you can use your leash infinitely. You can actually beat a large chunk of the game (minus the bosses) by using your leash and kicking enemies until they are dead.
You can also dash and slide for a long time. Like, REALLY long time. You don't get to slide on the floor as far as you can in Vanquish, however you are still able to slide for an unnaturally long time on rough surfaces and shoot at enemies, somehow. You actually move faster in the game by sliding all the time instead of running, which makes little sense. But that makes it harder for enemies to hit you and for you too hit them since you are sliding too fast; and there is no stamina bar. Hell, you can even slide uphill if that fits your fancy.
The kick. Well, yeah, the kicking ability really does augment the gameplay. But I wouldn't want people to consider this kicking ability to be something special and innovative, since I would like that credit to go to The Dark Messiah game which I am pretty sure was the first one to implement the kicking ability which always came in handy in kicking enemies off the cliffs and even in melee fights.
In the trailer you can see the enemy growling in agonizing pain after you shot him in his groin equipment. However, on hard mode, after growling for a few seconds, your enemy will recover, deal with the loss of the important male body part and then keep on shooting at you.
Blood. Yes, there is plenty of blood leaking and bursting out of your enemies. And there's plenty of gore and decapitations in general. You will get to see some loose limbs lying around. It did get under my skin to see those giant plants eating the savages though.
Cursing, yes, there's plenty of that too.
There are no free weapons in the game. You earn new weapons by getting skill shots. You also get to upgrade them so there is incentive to kill enemies in different ways - just as advertised.
The enemies look nice. They look a bit too buff and too clean though for a wasted planet.
One major flaw of the game is that if you outrun your enemies, that is if you outslide them and choose to slide past towards your objective and venture too far then you will die. Supposedly, you get shot in the back which is what one of the loading screen tells you. So I guess that is how they fixed the problem of rushing in this game, well maybe they should made the game slightly more challenging and took away the infinite sliding ability.
The sidekick in the game is also quite interesting and intriguing. While the character you play is a hairy and smelly loud mouthed ego-maniacal raptor, your juxtaposed sidekick is quite different. His cold calculated decisions and logical unbiased thinking reminded me of Spock, I think that was a nice touch. It is fun seeing the two battle out the the classic fate vs. coincidence moments.
I'm not going to say that the general gameplay of this game is flawless and that everyone will like it, but the pacing of the game is good and it will let you kill some time. The game reminded me of Borderlands on some occasions. You get see the giant skeletons of prehistorical creatures, just like in Borderlands.The AI is okay. The enemies rush, shoot, take cover, melee.
On the general positive note, the game has plenty of funny moments that are guaranteed to put a smirk on your face. Even when you can think of every possible classy quote, chances are, it's already been used and has become a cliche somewhat. However, this game does squeeze out quite a many memorable quotes that you probably didn't hear before. Some things are pretty innovative, especially the amusement park and some escape levels.There is never a dull moment and there are some memorable battle and escape sets and despite the strict linear gameplay, I still had fun feeling like an unstoppable killing machine in the world that makes little sense.
Regardless, I felt the need to pick the game to pieces and poke fun at its inconsistencies and complete disregard for the laws of physics, but I nevertheless had a good time playing it, and I still do. It's highly probably you will beat the game twice.
P.S.
The last two words in the game made my day.