On the surface, it may seem like another modern day shooter. Bulletstorm brings unconventional gameplay with a twist.
Bullestorm looks to be a first-person shooter that takes on unothrodox gameplay style to the limit. On the surface, it highly resembles its brethren game studios Epic Game's Gears of War. As I'd like to call Bulletstorm, Gears of War in first-person view.
In actuality, Bulletstorm is more than your average first-person shooter. It features a skillpoints system that allows you to score points on how you kill your enemies. Not only will your precision count towards gunning down your foes, but how well you execute your FPS skills and creativity matters just as much. You can slide-kick a baddie, sending him flailing into the air, kick him again, and unleash a flurry of painstaking bullet impact right in his moonshiner. And it goes, how you use your imagination and creativity will lessen or maximize your fun factor and overall gameplay experience. This is not a shallow game as you see on the front cover, or its silly one-liners.
From the up and coming game studio, People Can Fly, and developer of that game Painkiller, they have taken aim to satisfy the over-saturated first-person shooter market with something a little more unique. Two hours into the game, I already found myself creating so many different ways of killing enemies on the fly. Leash an enemy, kick him, then kick him again, shoot off a flail gun that wraps around him and detonates itself right into a crowd of enemies. Watch the screen splash with skillpoints all over like fireworks. Very satisfying.
Usually, in a game so action-packed, you'd come to expect very flat, two-demonsional characters. I'm not going to lie, they are, but it's not all black and white. The relationship between the main protagonist Grayson Hunt and Ishi, the loyal soldier under command turned half man, half robot, gives Bulletstorm some substance. You can almost sense that this will lead up to a dramatic ending, perhaps? I won't give that away. Find out for yourself.
Sporting the female characters in video games are cool, People Can Fly added a female character, with a rebelious, badass attitude to the roster. Even with that attempt of balancing the gender equality in video gaming, this probably won't sell too well to the female gamers. I think they'll just stick to Gears of War 2.
You'll be happy to know that the gameplay is slick, intuitive, easy-learning curve, and the controls are very responsive and it plays just as great on the PC, if not better. The sensitivity of the mouse settings is incredible. I had to turn down the sensitivity all the way down. That's a good thing for mouse and keyboard users as you won't be hindered with unresponsive and sluggish mouse input. Also, I found that I had to switch a couple of key bindings around. Initially, sprint was set to space bar, so I changed it to shift. But keep in mind that sprint key is also used to hurdle over objects and obstacles. And in the event where you need to climb ladders, jump down from higher structures, or monkey bar across to cross a platform will all be performed by a sequence of button presses. That leads us to the scripted events in the game. If you ever played Call of Duty: Black Ops, you'll feel almost right at home. Not only does Bulletstorm's gunplay snap in and out like Call of Duty's latest title, it also has many scripted sequences. Whether it's to slide down a treacherous slope to the bunkers of hell, or to shoot down a single enemy in cinematic fashion. It might turn off some gamers, but they're pretty satisfying to behold.
Unfortunately, with the game's graphics, it looks gorgeous but the Unreal Engine itself is showing age, as it has been for the past 2-3 years. Rest assured, Bulletstorm looks great. Vibrant colors, to dark themed environments, Bulletstorm doesn't just come in three shades of brown. It's a gorgeous looking game and it has some pretty breath-taking vistas. The most memorable has to be the first sequence at the start of the game. I thought it was a really neat concept. But Bulletstorm's color spectrum isn't the main course. It's the gorey headshots, cactus kills, and spine-tingling kicks to the head that really make the visuals pop at you. Plenty of explosions to behold, as you partake in enemies splattering at your doom. I had a lot of enjoyment from doing chain explosions on groups of enemies. AAx4 is enough to get rid of all the unsightly jaggies. Everything looks sharp, clean, and crisp and pleasing to the eyes.
Humor. While Bulletstorm aims at brashing the player with funny one-liners and flat-out "what the hell did he just say" toilet humor, it can be hard on the ears. It's really a hit or miss. If you can appreciate the in your face humor, you'll fit right in with Grayson Hunt and the crew. Be warned, there is a good amount of profanity and squeamish remarks. This is not for kids! :P
I am declined to think that this is another average first-person shooter. I think it offers something that a lot of modern day shooters don't. On the surface, it's an FPS game, but at it's core, it's a first-person shooter that aims at letting the player let loose and let their creativity soar. You can approach each firefight differently each time, using your arsenal and your environment to enable that creative spark. Execute, and rack up skill points. Bulletstorm doesn't try to be something it's not. And it's incredibly fun, if you find replayability in killing for scores. If that isn't your motivation when playing games, then you're better suited for something else, because Bulletstorm is all about how you kill and thinking of as many ways to rack up points in a bloodbath.
Bulletstorm is an incredible game. It doesn't take itself too seriously, nor does it try to be something it's not. Witness epic boss battles and set-pieces, while mowing down your enemies with style and force. It grabs you by the horn and manages to keep and hold your attention throughout the campaign. And you'll probably want to maybe play it one more time or at least co-op with your friends online to imprint your name on the leaderboards. I would have given this game an 8.5, but People Can Fly tried to do something different from modern day shooters. With that said, I had to bump it up a notch and give it a 9.0/10. I actually had a lot of fun with Bulletstorm over other AAA games out on the market. Of course, it's all opinion. So I leave it to you to judge the game for yourself.
Score: 7/10
Update: After playing more Bulletstorm, I find that there aren't enough combinations as I thought. I was doing different combo kills but the game doesn't detect cool moves that I do. I guess they did not design the gameplay thinking of all the wild and whacky combinations that can be done. One example of a combination kill that I did was Thumper, which sends the enemies into the air, I shot a flail gun at one of the enemies, and detonated the bomb, and it splashed explosion all the other nearby enemies but I didn't get any skillpoints for them. This is just one of few things that People Can Fly didn't think of. So half the time, I feel like my skill kills are pointless and unrewarding. This game was designed to let player's think out of the box, but it doesn't reward the player for thinking of different combinations of kills.