It’s safe to say in this day and age that shooters, whether they are 1 person or 3 person, have usually been a staple recipe for success, especially after the releases of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Gears of War. That was 4-5 years ago and now the market is flooded with shooters galore. Bulletstorm hopes to bring an over-the-top, super violent and foul mouthed romp in space to the proceedings and while Bulletstorm may seem tame to what the marketing has lead us to believe (which is not a negative) it is no doubt a heck of a lot of fun.
You are Grayson Hunt an infamous space pirate with a huge bounty on your head as well as his crews’, you soon learn though that via a flashback, he and his crew were framed by his old foul-mouthed leader General Serrano, and after a drunken mistake in the present, things go terribly after he and his half-Cyborg friend Ishi end up stranded on a “butt-hole of a planet”. What entails after a bad first impression in the first 30-40 minutes or so is an 8-10 hour revenge tales as the two try to get off the mutant infested planet and get sweet revenge on General Sarrano. While you have seen better video game stories before Bulletstorm offers a nice laid back tale in a universe that is akin to a 80s Sci-fi movie, with entertaining characters from Ishi the loyal, logical man yet slowly losing his mind to his Cyborg implants, Grayson Hunt the drunken idiot with a heart, Trishka the “tough as nails” female of the group and General Sarrano himself a foul-mouthed, racist and sarcastic antagonist of the game, that you could not hate anymore then you already do from this description.
To keep with up its aesthetic Bulletstorm’s gameplay is what matters and boy is it over the top. The shtick of the game is the “Skill-Shot” system, with each kill you rack up points for taking out your enemies in brutal ways, for example: Shooting an enemy in the groin and then kicking his head off will grant you the “Mercy” Skill-shot and Bulletstorm has them in spades. Now all these Skill-shots would be impossible if you didn’t have the right tools for the job and luckily you do. Grayson can kick enemies as well as slide into them to launch them into slow motion giving you plenty of opportunities; another tool at Grayson’s disposal is the leash which lets you reel enemies into slow-motion as well and later on comes with an upgrade that allows you to launch several enemies in the air called the “Thumper”. A nice arsenal of seven weapons at your disposal in the game which 3 can be equipped at a time, such as the Peacemaker Carbine; which is your standard assault rifle and the Flailgun which fires two grenades on each end of a chain which wraps itself around the victim ready for detonation and that’s just to name a couple, each come with a charge ability which usually ramps up their explosive potential (literally) excluding the Gatling gun.
Asides from the campaign Bulletstorm also has an echoes mode which is a shortened version of each level in the game that you have to rack up as many skill-shot points and in the fastest time possible, which can then be compared to your friends and the rest of the world on the leaderboard. Now in this day and age it is imperative that a FPS have a multiplayer component as well and Bulletstorm offers customisation of you character’s helmet, trousers, boots and a gun skin similar to Halo and one game type called Anarchy, in this mode players must work together to wipe out waves of enemies and reach a total score using Skill-shots with a special enemy near the end of a wave who has a special team Skill-shot such as “Be kicked into the air by one player and shot by another”. There are six maps and 20 waves in total, now this isn’t going to wrench you off Call of Duty but it’s entertaining while it lasts.
I must admit I had middling expectations going into Bulletstorm mainly due to the fact that I thought the main characters were going to be unlikeable; spouting excessive swearing and atrocious dialogue but after playing through the game I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it overall, especially the story. It’ll be nice to see how the gameplay evolves in a potential sequel but for now get past the bad first impression from the slow start and let Bulletstorm take you on a rollercoaster of a ride.
- UKSamwise