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As hardware and technology advances, so do video games, one genre that had shown rapid advancement (technically) is the first person shooter. While First person shooters have become immensely photo realistic and require a more specific learning curve in order to use your weapons and maneuverability more efficiently, they lost a certain charm, they’ve become more style and less goofy (in a good way), no longer are they as fun and easy to get into like Doom or Quake.
Bulletstorm seems to go more towards the direction of those old first person shooter games that I adore, it doesn’t take itself seriously, the weapons aren’t your conventional weapons, and the game is just more about the fun of shooting them rather following certain disciplines on how to aim and shoot realistic guns.
You play Grayson Hunt a soldier in exile who went rogue against a power hungry general. After running away in space for several long years with a bounty on his team’s heads, he bumps into the general’s battle ship and decides to attack it, in the process destroying his ship and half of his team. Hunt later crash lands on a planet full of barbaric bandits and mows his way through the barren planet’s landscape to find the general and put an end to the man that ruined his team’s lives.
The story can be a bit on the boring side, it’s hard to find a first person shooter with a notable story nowadays, though Bulletstorm has some witty writing when it comes to dialogue. Grayson and the other characters are very chatty during the game but they always seem to have something notably funny to say.
The thing about the game is that it has been poking fun at other shooters before its release with the help of marketing and little game that parodizes Call of Duty called Duty Calls, but even after release there are these little details that make fun of the whole genre is what gives this game charm. Take the skill point system for example, it’s suppose to motivate the General’s army to work more effectively. In case you didn’t get the joke, it’s suppose to be mocking the usual scoring system in most military multiplayer FPSs, how people get rewards for their performance in multiplayer games. these points are used to upgrade your guns in the game.
The points system does a good job of marking your every move and making it very satisfying in racking up points, there are many ways to inflict hurt onto your enemies and it does encourage you to be creative, which is something not a lot of games do these days. You get this energy leash in the game that does add more to the game, you use it to pull enemies and items towards you to make your attacks easier and gives you that much control in the battlefield.
Did I mention that this game is all about the big silly guns it throws at you? This game literally takes all the real weapons military shooters use and throws them out of the window, but then when there’s a quad barreled shotgun, a revolver that fires flares, a sniper rifle with remote controlled bullets and a rocket launcher that fires rockets with spinning drill tips. There’s so much to play with your imagination on how you use these weapons, each with their own specific skill points. Weapons and the leash aren’t the only ways to kill in this game, the environment does give you a ton of options too, from your usual exploding barrel, parasitic blobs and even man eating plants.
Controls are very well implemented, even though I do prefer mouse and keyboard over controllers when it comes to first person shooters and I do hate using the Playstation controller when it comes to first person shooters. In Bulletstorm however, the controls work great and not for a second you’ll feel hindered by the limitations of the controller, I was able to react responsively and take on myriads of enemies in one consistent stream of attacks.
Another cool thing about the game though is the action set pieces that you experience while going through it, this game does not shy away from giving you some entertaining scripted events, whether they are genuinely funny or just fun to go through. The game seems very generous when it comes to check points, so when you die you’re not very far from where you left off. However the problem is that loading the game does take some time, I’m not one to complain about long load times, but you do get into the game that these load times kind of mentally disconnect you from the game.
Another problem in the game that near the end, you will face some pacing problems where some bits feel either too short or just too long. What makes this problem worse is that you will end up in some places out of bullets with no points to spend on ammo, and forced to use your least favorite weapons at times when they’re just ineffective on the enemies of whichever part of the game you’re in. Writing does go through weird inconsistencies where the writing is humorous and suddenly flips super serious all the sudden.
Bulletstorm isn’t a serious pokerfaced shooter, it’s a look back at when first person shooters were about nothing but nougatty dumb carnage fun goodness. Think of it as a mindless action block buster, mindless fun all the way.
What We Think: If you’re coming expecting another Call of Duty, you will be dissapointed, however if you’re coming sick and tired of military shooters LIKE Call of Duty, you’re in for a seriously fun treat.
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