Okay Geek Farm
Bulletstorm Review
Jamie DonnellyDownload this EpisodeSubscribe on iTunesRSS FeedFollow on Twitter
Reviewing Bulletstorm immediately after playing Bulletstorm is probably a bad idea. It’s just so damn tempting to litter the page with a dozen expletives and tell you all to bloody well grow some genitals. If that sentence managed to offend you, then stay far, far away from Bulletstorm.
Publisher: EA
Developer: People Can Fly and Epic Games
Platforms: PS3/Xbox 360
Price: $59.99
Story
Bulletstorm manages to be a humorous, ironic self-parody and a serious, emotional story all wrapped up in one big offensive package. You play as Grayson Hunt, a former black-ops alcoholic space pirate who has a serious grudge match with his former employer, General Sarrano. Hunt’s ship has crash landed on the planet Stygia – a not so friendly place that has become overrun with mutated plant-life, tribes and criminals – as well as the odd dinosaur. Hunt is accompanied by Ishi Sato, a homicidal cyborg whose logic occasionally dictates that the most effective course of action would be to kill Hunt. Along the way you find Trishka, another former employee of Sarrano, and the three of you must make your way through the planet in order to find Sarrano and end Hunt’s vendetta once and for all. The plot of betrayal and revenge may sound cliché, but it is executed perfectly. It is rare that after finishing a game I am wishing for a sequel because of the story, but Bulletstorm manages to create an emotional investment in the characters which is rarely seen in video games, let alone first-person shooters. Not bad for a game that supposedly encourages mindless sex and violence and not a lot else.
Gameplay
Bulletstorm brings an energy to first-person shooters that has been painfully missing in recent years. Other games will have you raining bullets down on the enemy from onboard a helicopter. Bulletstorm has you raining bullets down on the enemy from onboard a helicopter while a dinosaur is viciously attempting to swallow you for destroying its eggs. There is also a section in the game where you control a mech, seemingly commonplace for any future FPS these days. Bulletstorm once again revitalises the tired formula by making the mech an animatronic dinosaur named Wallington P. Tallylicker. It is these set pieces that make Bulletstorm feel so invigorating and fresh. The only issue I found was that at some of the most frenzied sections the game needed a quick respite to load, and this ruined the immersion to a degree.
‘Skillshots’ is the feature that Bulletstorm is being sold on. You are not just expected to kill enemies, you are expected to kill them as creatively as possible. Bulletstorm taps into your sadistic side and pushes you to the brink of questioning your own sick sense of humour. Basic skillshots comprise of ‘headshot’ and ‘bullet kick’ which are self-explanatory. All the weapons have unique basic skillshots as well as skillshots that are linked to their charge ability. Kicking an enemies head off after shooting them in the genitals with the PMC will earn you a ‘Mercy’ skillshot. There are also skillshots that require interacting with the environment. For example, ‘Voodoo Doll’ is awarded for kicking an enemy into a wall of spikes. Kick them into a giant cactus, however, and you will achieve the ‘Pickled’ skillshot. Skillshots give various points, and the more you use them the more their value decreases. It is no good finding a skillshot you like and spamming it – you have to be original as well as creative. The range of skillshots keeps the entertainment levels high, and pulling one off that you have been attempting to master is sickeningly sweet. The only problem is that they start to feel limited after a while, despite there being almost one hundred and fifty of them. This is both criticism and praise; they only feel limited because by the time you are well versed in the brutal ways of Bulletstorm you will be wanting a thousand ways to kill and be rewarded for it.
On top of the brutal weaponry and your kick, you have the Leash. The Leash will quickly become your most faithful companion. It can be used to pull enemies in, hence the ‘Leash’, and also has a powerful AOE attack that sends enemies flying into the air in slow motion. Not only is it a useful weapon, but you will also need to interact with various objects in the environment to progress through the levels. These elements consist of using the Leash on whatever piece of scenery happens to be flashing neon blue, and unlike the killing system never requires you to really think outside the box. Despite the simplicity, manipulating the environment in this way makes for interesting set pieces that keep up the pace of the game.
There are three game types in Bulletstorm; Campaign Mode, Echo Mode, and Anarchy Mode. Campaign is self-explanatory and features seven chapters which take around 6-7 hours to complete. While this may sound short, Echo Mode provides plenty of gametime after the campaign has been completed. Echo Mode tasks you with revisiting certain sections of the game so you can attempt to get the highest score possible. There is a star rating system for each ‘Echo’, and you must achieve a certain number of stars before you can move on to the next stage. This does not prove too difficult, and you will get all the stars after only a couple of runthroughs of each Echo if you are familiar with even just a few skillshots. The fun comes from trying to top the high score tables, and seeing your friends overtake you is sure to keep you fighting to be number one. Bulletstorm does not feature any standard competitive multiplayer modes, but instead features Anarchy Mode, a competitive co-op mode. You team up with four other players and, as always, have to pull off as many skillshots as possible. There are new multiplayer sklllshots available and when a team works in tandem it results in some frantic and explosive action. However, as with all online co-op, the issue of bad teammates rears its ugly head. All too often you get stuck with players who don’t understand the Bulletstorm philosophy, and just run around shooting everything they see.
Difficulty and Replayability
Bulletstorm is not a difficult game in the traditional sense; you could run through shooting every enemy in your sight and be done with the single player in about five hours. The health system means you can always run behind cover if you’re ever in danger and wait for heath to regenerate before unleashing another hail of bullets. Mindlessly running and killing enemies is not the point of Bulletstorm though, and as you may have gauged by now – nothing it does is traditional. Bulletstorm is a difficult game not in terms of shooting and surviving, but almost in terms of your ability to solve puzzles. The skillshot system means you need to be fully aware of your environment and the enemies positioning, as well as the abilities that your weapons bring you. If you want to top the high score tables in Echo mode then you are going to need to evaluate each section of play and plan which skillshots will score you optimal points. This may sound tedious, but the variability of skillshots means you will often discover the highest point scoring method simply while mucking about with the murderous tools at your disposal.
Look and Sound
The environments look fantastic, and every area is polished sublimely. The feeling of claustrophobia in a dark, dingy cave evaporates perfectly as you rapidly slide towards the light that beams in from outside. Plant life invades crumbling buildings, and the way the environment collapses around you makes the world feel that much more real. One section in the game sees you running through a model city giving the impression you and Ishi are giants – it is yet another example of innovative thinking from ‘People Can Fly’ that makes Bulletstorm so memorable. Unfortunately, the sight of the environment is somewhat ruined by the character models. During gameplay they look fine, but during cutscenes they look lifeless and seem to be possessed by a strange plastic shine that distracts from the atmosphere.
The music and sound effects do not venture beyond the call of duty, but the voice-acting is what surprised me as being very impressive. While Hunthas your typical macho-gruff voice, it also has a vein of remorse and emotion running through it that most action voice-actors would not even think about. The other characters are the same, and it is the emotion in the voices that helps create such a bond between you and them. The profanity is also fitting, and the frequency of it renders it almost unnoticeable. Would you really care about manners and politeness if you were a space pirate stranded on a mutated, war-torn planet? “Please mister alien don’t hurt me - Oh I’m awfully sorry about shooting your friends in the testicles” just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as an expletive-ridden outburst of panic and anger.
Overall
Do not be dissuaded by Bulletstorm’s veil of immaturity and profanity – beneath the offensiveness is a polished, well-crafted game that kicks the tired FPS formula in the air and then blows it to smithereens. It offers a fresh new take on the genre, tasking you with killing creatively rather than just killing to get to the end of a level. The result is an experience that feels rewarding throughout, and the solid story running through the campaign mode makes Bulletstorm the complete package.
Pro’s
- Revitalises the stale FPS formula.
- Stunning environments.
- Tongue-in-cheek humour and well realised story.
Con’s
- Character models are eerily mannequin looking.
- Loading sometimes interrupts gameplay.
- Campaign is on the short side.
9/10 - The game oozes crass insults and offensive slang and is not for the faint of heart. With so many swears and sexual innuendo Bulletstorm could easily have come across as juvenile and offensive for no explicit reason other than to offend. That is the most striking aspect of this game – it doesn’t. Yes, there is plenty of immaturity that spews forth from the characters mouths (or ‘cockholes’ as one character so delightfully labels them), but it works. Bulletstorm fuses cliché with innovation to create an unforgettable experience.
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