If you are a fan of no-nonsense, come-get-some brutality this is your smorgasbord. There's plenty to go around.
Graphics: 10 (so pretty you can carve it)
Sounds: 9 (earth shaking)
Value: 6 (a little short to pay full price / online is muddling)
Tilt: 9 (you always learn new ways to dispatch your enemies)
Actual score: 8.2
We all have reasons why we play games. For me I don't watch movies much therefore I rely on games to provide me a great story. Heck, I even read novels based on the games I played (if available of course). And then there are games that provide me absolutely no storyline, poor characters yet I'm still intrigue by it and wanted to complete it…twice! Bulletstorm falls into this second category; that is, throw away the plot and leave the action – and thankfully though this is what this game is all about; shut up, kill enemies in the most spectacular way, drink beer and nothing less…oh and kick someone in the groin just because you can.
Yet, looking in hindsight, the premise seems like an afterthought as there are pot holes larger than a planet made entirely of swiss cheese. The main protagonist Grayson Hunt is a space pirate bent on revenge. His former commanding officer General Sarrano tricked Hunt and his team to kill civilians. Yes, Hunt has some kind of morals when it comes to this, yet throughout the game, he's nothing more than a moving killing / wrecking machine with no conscience other than boosting his own ego earning kill streaks. So after a failed attempt to kill Sarrano in his own flag ship, they crash landed on the planet Stygia; once a paradise now overrunned by critters acting willingly as targets for your skill shots.
Hell yes, this is what this game is all about. Kill your foes in the most spectacular way and hold no bars. Point and shoot are for the weak and soo old skool. How you attempt this is limited to your own imagination. This is certainly the highlight of the game as it encourages you to use the environment and even your fellow team mates to dispatch your foes. So if you see a cactus plant, kick a sucker into it. Want to go one step better? Place a spore on the sucker's head, then launch a wrap-around grenade then kick him into the cactus bush. Or you can simply just shoot him therefore wasting ammo unnecessarily. All of these are called skill shots and forms the basis of the game. The zanier the skill shot, the more points you rake up. The more points you earn, the better the upgrades. You get the picture?
Yet by relying on your weapon at hand can be satisfying however the best feature is the leash. The leash at its minimalist, is to leash your opponent and drawing it close to you (funny that). Then you can deal with him whatever tickles your fancy – and do it with style (too bad though there's no b!tch slap option). Personally I cannot live without the leash as it's so damn cool just leashing an enemy behind a wall only to smack him into a set of spikes. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! And like all good games, each weapon has an alt function for additional mayhem.
Thankfully, the controls to perform your supernatural talents are stellar…well almost. Everything from leashing to spraying bullets to kicking, sliding, sniping and the lists goes on are all responsive. I was initially paranoid about this as because this is the main draw card, and being a console port of sorts, I thought the worst of it however it proved me wrong. Sadly though, there are some elements of 'consolitis' as for starters, you cannot jump…period; until the game tells you to by a stupid indicator stating press 'x' (or whatever the assigned key is) to perform the action. So if you see a ledge only a centimetre high, too bad, you cannot just walk over it – you need to wait for that 'jump' indicator.
Another painful 'feature' is the auto-save as there are times where the game bugs out and you cannot move to the next section. So your only solution is to restart back to the previous checkpoint thus loosing all your hard-earned skill points. Luckily though, I encountered this only three times. Also my pet hate is the 'auto heal' as a snipe to the head equates to just hide and rest for a moment. And it's because of this made me played through the hardest level without too much difficulty. But heck, I'm here just to cause another Chernobyl disaster.
Because it's using the Unreal 3 engine, the overall vistas are a beauty to behold. In deep space, it's filled with pretty, glittering stars with the ship's interior looking like it just been hit by a battering ram. Yet once you land on Stygia, you will be greeted with bright silhouette of colours, filled with fluffy clouds, birds flying about and tranquil waters all encased with landscapes that only the Unreal Engine can produce. And yeah don't let this tranquil scenery fool you. Just destroy this paradise ok?
Likewise are the sounds. If you have invested in a great set of headphones or speakers, crank this baby up as the entire set will cause your house / unit to rattle. It's loud, noisy, and obnoxious and that's a good thing as it enhances the brutality of your skill shots. The hero's voice are also macho-like filled with as much male testosterone that one can muster – then add a few more. So in a nutshell, it was a pleasure becoming momentary deaf once exiting this game.
The campaign length is pretty typical for a FPS. I think the expected completion time is around the 10hrs mark however I knocked this off within 15hrs. Yet, because the game is so fast paced, you think it's actually shorter. And because it has five difficulty levels, all walks of life should be able to play it however veteran FPS might find this a little easy due to the self healing system. Once completed the main campaign, you can play it on the harder difficultly level and to those achievement lovers, there are plenty of combos to unlock as unlocking all in your first round is highly unlikely.
Once you are tired of playing alone, you can compete with your pals for the highest score in a round called 'echoes'. Echoes is basically replaying a scene from the single player campaign, and trying to combo your way for the highest score. So in essence, the main idea is to use all the available weapons to score high and naturally earning achievements and bragging rights. And if you can grab three players, you can play anarchy where it's like the 'hoard' mode – play and kill hard until you reach level 65.
So anarchy mode encourages team work to score high and to score higher, look out for alerts on top of certain victim's heads. However the bane of this mode is that if you have a poor connection (or like me, ping times because of my location) then you'll be treated with a super annoying 'bad connection' word right in the middle of your screen. Seriously, what the hell were the developers were thinking? Can't they place this super annoying alert say on the top right of the screen?! Also you have zero option of selecting a server or create your own. Yes, so super annoying I want to skill shot this.
Bulletstorm advertises kill with skill. Targeted to simply poke fun at Call of Duty (for which I add there's a free downloadable game called Duty Calls – play it as it's almost like the real thing), its main goal is for players to think before dispatching your enemies. You will be outnumbered for the most part however by using your head just a little, you can easily cause a nuclear winter in Stygia in no time. So if you are a fan of no-nonsense, come-get-some brutality this is your smorgasbord. There's plenty to go around.