Bulletstorm

Are you sick of "Realistic Shooters" set it "Unspecified-istan" while you battle either Russians, Middle Eastern Opfor or a combination of the two? Are you sick tough, gritty space marines, with plastic mattel guns that fire with an unsatisfactory "pew-pew"? You know what? Bulletstorm may just be for you. This game comes to us from the makers of Gears of War AND Painkiller, so expect something new!

STORY
Bulletstorm follows the misadventures of infamous space pirate Grayson Hunt, and his journey to revenge and retribution. It all starts with Gray crashing his ship into the cruiser of his former boss, General Sarrano, in an ill-fated attempt at revenge. However, Grayson has trapped himself and the only other surviving member of his crew, Ishi on the former resort planet of Stygia.

Adding to that problem, his friend Ishi has to be revived through the implantation of the onboard computer system, causing him to go all "Red-eye terminator" and the planet is overrun with gangs of criminals and mutants. So, the game follows Hunt's journey to save his loyal crewmember, as well as completing his revenge against General Sorrano.

Despite the writing being extremely crude, and fall of dick jokes, Bulletstorm's story was actually quite good. You get a real sense that Grayson feels he's let his crew down, and he'll stop at nothing to set things right, by killing Sorrano, or getting Ishi off of Stygia. However, all the characters of Bulletstorm pale in comparison to Stygia itself. The story behind it is interesting, and I found myself playing solely to see how Stygia became the place it is now.

PRESENTATION
Bulletstorm is a really good looking game. Not in the usual way like how CoD or Halo look good, however. The landscapes in Bulletstorm are bright and varied, and the enemies and weaponry share this quality. There's a severe lack of gun-metal grey or dystopia-brown; instead, we're treated to luscious greens, deep blues and blazing orange's.

The sound design is also really great. Each gun has unique sound effects and the soundtrack varies from area to area. On the other hand, the enemies spout the same lines over and over again. This will make you want to kill them even more. So perhaps this was a good design choice?

The voice acting is fairly standard, with Grayson Hunt being voiced by Steven Blum (of CoD Zombie Nazi's fame). Seriously, does no one see that alot of his voices are exactly the same?


GAMEPLAY
This is where shit gets real for Bulletstorm. In it's most basic form, it is an Arcade Shooter, wrapped in the jacket of your standard linear FPS. The focus of the game is on getting points, which I'll get to in a moment.

The core gameplay of shoot, kick, leash and run is smooth and flows really nicely. Grayson's melee attacks have a good sense of weight to them, and the game is filled with some truly kickass weaponry. Regular readers may know that I have a special place in my heart for Insomniac, due to their imagination when it comes to weapons, so it may not surprise you that Bulletstorms arsenal does NOT disappoint.

Now, the game focuses on it's tagline: "Kill With Skill". This means, you have to use your environment, weapons, melee attachs and your leash to (in the words of Cliffy B) play with your enemies like a fat kid plays with cake. The points you earn can be used to buy ammo, upgrades or new weapons, and it provides a nice amount of variety to the usual run and shoot gameplay.

On the downside, this mechanic is shoehorned into gameplay pretty badly. The "Leash" that Hunt acquires allows him to fling enemies around and also access weapon Drop Shops. However, it will only serve him, if he can get enough points to pay for these things. While it works as a currency system, it would be less annoying if it just wasn't mentioned in the story.

And another thing, this may seem like a minor gripe, but who the hell decided there was going to be a button to activated your weapons secondary fire, instead of just FIRING IT. It just means more movements between seeing your target and exploding their ass with lead, and thats the wrong way to go about good design.

REPLAYABILITY
While there are multiplayer modes, theres very little to dwell on. Basically, theres Anarchy mode, where you play as one of four "Dead Echo" recruits, working together to reach a preset score to proceed to the next round. Echo mode gets you to play through single player sections in order to get a higher score than anyone on your friends list. Go nuts. It still doesn't compare to a decent competitive multiplayer.

Aside from that, the only reason to replay the main story is for the trophies or achievements. While I have no problem with that, the single player mode just doesn't have enough extras to bring me back again and again.

OVERVIEW
The actual length of the game is just over the average length of a CoD game on normal difficulty. It's long enough that the skillshots don't get too repetitive and it doesn't wear out its welcome. The gameplay is solid and fluid (ironic?) and Grayson, as a character is genuinely likeable sometimes. At least, moreso than most characters in Shooter games. Im looking at you Marcus Fenix!

If you want something thats not taking itself too seriously, Bulletstorm is for you. If you like Dick Jokes, this is perfect for you. If you like having to work for your currency, then this game is for you. If you're looking for a deep story, well... you could do worse than Bulletstorm, though I doubt this will satisfy your needs.


Anyways, see you guys next time! Killzone 3 review is on the way, feedback is still appreciated. =D