Bulletstorm Review

Bulletstorm is the latest game from the doors of People Can Fly, the studio who brought us the underrated and rather good Painkiller, with collaborating efforts from Cliff Bleszinski as well as his team at Epic. Touted as the saviour to the scourge of modern day FPS titles, Bulletstorm is not set in war torn generistan, instead favouring a rather refreshing 26th Century setting. Filled with over the top kills, Gentleman's Sausage jokes and puerile humour, the game instantly struck me as thoroughly enjoyable.

The game throws you into the rather large shoes of Grayson Hunt, an ex special forces soldier serving under General Serrano, who seems to have an equally strong thirst for potty language as our protagonist. The game starts out with Gray and one of his compatriots, Rell, drunk as skunks interrogating a bounty hunter about who put the mark out for Gray and his crew-members.

It obvious playing through this visually impaired tutorial that Bulletstorm is a title that does not take itself seriously while also throwing sucker punches at the more established names in the FPS market. The overtone of satire actually gives the quite murky and stagnant waters of the genre a good kick in the balls which it was in dire need of, showing the userbase that there is more variety to the First Person Shooter pool than Call of Duty.

Now it's a tad strange to have a serious plot in a game where someone threatens to kill your dick if you follow them. You see, I mentioned before that Gray was part of a special forces unit, Dead Echo, and shortly after the tutorial you play through the final mission of that unit, discovering why Gray now has a penchant for revenge pointed directly at Serrano. Details emerge that the assassination missions you were given by Serrano to carry out were actually civilian targets, rather than the gun runners and drug dealers you were told the targets seemingly were.

Flashback over and you're staring at the Confederate's flagship, the notion of fleeing the scene quickly is dismissed by Gray, favouring brute force and ignorance, the decision to fight is made. After a short on rails shoot out, the ship crash lands on an alien planet where the indigenous locals aren't pounding the hull of your ship to bring you a fruit basket welcoming gift. Now it's a matter of sheer survival as you try to get off planet and maybe take down Serrano on the way.

Now the main feature, or gimmick, of Bulletstorm is the skill-shot angle they push forward. You're essentially awarded for inventive ways of killing your enemies, for example a simple headshot would net you about 25 points however if you decide to leash someone in the air, kick them in the face then shoot them in the bottom you could net 100 points, so it's always worth being inventive.

These points can then be spent in the numerous drop pods scattered around the world, these can unlock further abilities for your weapons or leash, or simply just purchase additional ammo for your guns. It is an interesting feature to say the least and certainly puts a spin on the usual run and gun nature of FPS titles, however I found myself just resorting to my normal style of play and outputting a lot of headshots rather than being creative. I felt that trying to do something new put you at a greater risk of being shot and also was detrimental to my natural flow with shooters, however there is no denying that there is some seriously satisfying kills to be had using the system.

Once you've finished with your single player gaming experience there's some multiplayer goodness to be had, first of all is the Echoes mode. This strips out the storyline, along with pertinent cinematics, then gives you the keys to cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war as you attempt to kick, leash, explode, snipe and shoot your way to a high score while also keeping an eye on the clock.

Anarchy mode is essentially Horde mode that we've seen in Gears of War, although this time it's not just a case of killing the wave and moving to the next. You'll have to work together with up to three other players to gain team skillshot points, this awards you bonus points to the standard skill point scoring system and is essential to reach the imposed skillshot score limit on each wave.

This also discourages those lone wolves that prowl public hosted games as you do need teamwork to succeed, one person cannot carry the team in this mode, as without proper communication and co-ordination you will simply fail at besting all 20 waves. Also to help prevent this is the spawning of enemies that detail a specific skillshot above their head that needs to be executed in order to dispatch him.

Unfortunately there is no traditional competitive multiplayer modes in Bulletstorm, so those looking for some Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch action will have to look elsewhere on this occasion.

Moving onto the eye candy, you can see why People Can Fly chose the latest Unreal Engine to power Bulletstorm. Stunning vistas, beautiful scenery and some long words to do with graphics I can't pronounce all add up to a gorgeous game. Though be warned, you may need to alter a couple of settings if your gaming rig is not cutting edge in order to get this game working. We had to turn of Antialiasing completely and alter the resolution to a 16:9 aspect ratio before the game ran smoothly. Hopefully these issues will be addressed in a patch shortly.

The soundtrack to the game is pretty damn awesome in all honesty, from the impromptu "Disco Inferno" upon entering the club, the impressive voice acting courtesy of Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale whom you've no doubt heard before in a myriad of titles in the past - for example both voiced characters in Mass Effect 2 and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 - to the weaponry in the game which sounds meaty and feels like it actually serves a purpose rather than sounding like a plastic pea-shooter bought from the pound shop. There's always something going on audibly and visually with Bulletstorm so there is never a dull moment.

Overall Bulletstorm is a fairly solid shooter, a refreshing title that's not a serious world war slash war torn generistan FPS experience and one that everyone should take the time to play. The tag line kill with skill is certainly appropriate for this game and is bloody rewarding if you're in any way amused by gratuitous violence and dick jokes.