Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm is the video game equivalent of Snakes on a Plane. It’s crude, mindless and vulgar but it’s also somewhat of a guilty pleasure that entertains with its simple yet solid gameplay.

In case you’ve missed the in your face promos, Bulletstorm is really not about a riveting plot. In fact I would say that Bulletstorm’s weakest link is its utterly banal story and horrible voice acting. I admit some of the one-liners were amusing from a ‘so bad they’re good’ standpoint, but beyond that, it was a constant assault on my ears - and not in a good way. People Can Fly need to realize that inserting d***k, f***k or some obscene variant of those two words gets real painful after a while. It’s like the script was written by a 12 year old who only recently woke up to the world of cursing.

Is that any way to ask a lady out?

Things go from bad to ‘holy-crap-I-can’t-take-this-anymore’ when you’re introduced to the game’s antagonist who’s so annoying you want to not only stab yourself in the ears but choke the idiot that voiced him. Bulletstorm’s lead too isn’t much better - a bumbling mercenary who has the knack of landing himself into constant trouble. He’s backed up by one of his close compadres who pretty much whines throughout the campaign making him a constant pain in your backside. You’d think at least the banter between the two would be cool or funny but it’s not.

Thankfully the game’s balanced out – to a certain extent – by solid gunplay. Taking a page from The Club, Bulletstorm is all about killing skillfully. Merely shooting enemies is just not cool and will net you hardly any points. The more over-the-top the kill, the more the rewards you reap. This is possible thanks to a badass electric leash mounted on your wrist. This leash can be used to pull enemies towards you (in slow motion) after which you can proceed to kick them, impale them, shoot them or just blow them up. As and when an enemy gets too close for comfort, you can kick him back with your boot (in slow motion once again) and proceed to annihilate him in creative ways. A huge part of this creativity comes from your diverse arsenal as well as environmental hazards so make sure you keep an eye out for stuff like spikes, exploding barrels (but of course), open electric wires etc.

Shouldn't you be in Japan?

Now you’d think this sort of gameplay would allow players to get real creative, but ironically Bulletstorm is pretty restrictive. There are only a certain amount of Skillshots you can execute enemies with and you’ll find yourself sticking to just a few through most of the game. Replaying levels and switching up your arsenal (certain skillshots can only be unlocked with certain weapons) will probably allow you to discover skillshots you missed in your first play through but it really boils down to pulling, kicking and shooting. This issue is ironed out to a certain extent by quite a bit of environmental variety that grants players a tad more freedom.

But perhaps what I found most impressive about the game were some of its epic (pun intended) set pieces and vistas that impressed my di… I mean shorts off. The planet Stygia may be a hostile one but it looks gorgeous, especially from certain vantage points. And as far as set pieces go, it’s safe to say that they could hold their ground against some of the stuff we’ve seen from the Call of Duty series.

The collaboration with Epic has allowed developer People Can Fly to make use of the Unreal 3 engine. On the Xbox360 the game does look a bit shabby at places but the PC version is downright gorgeous. Thankfully, the frame rate stays rock solid throughout the action on both platforms. Unfortunately, delayed texture loading, an issue present in nearly every Unreal 3 game, raises its ugly head in Bulletstorm once again. This was more of a problem with the 360 version.

Oooo shiny

Bulletstorm has no conventional multiplayer to speak of. Instead, you and three other friends can embark on a co-operative murderous rampage against numerous waves of the enemy AI. It’s a lot like the Horde mode from Gears of War 2 and in case you have no friends, you can play this Anarchy mode all by yourself. Only it’s a lot tougher – and lonelier.

Besides that, you also have something called an Echo mode where levels from the single player campaign are chopped up so you can run through them racking up as many points as possible. Every time you play through a level, your points are uploaded online so you can see how you fared compared to your friends or other players around the world. If you’re the competitive type, this does add a bit to the game’s replayability.   

Don't mess with us

As much as I hate the game’s ‘I’m so hardcore, I’m cool’ vibe, there’s no doubt that Bulletstorm is a solid shooter. Sure the whole SkillShot business may seem a bit gimmicky at first but as you really get into it, racking up a high score most definitely becomes addictive. If you’re looking for a mindless game to offset some of the hyper realistic ones you’ve played recently, Bulletstorm will not disappoint.