Bulletstorm Review

You know, over the past couple of years, the first-person shooter genre has felt kind of stale. Oh sure, you get your gems that stick out such as Killzone 2 (which stuck out for its enormous improvement to the original), Bad Company and a few others but those are big exceptions.

The guys as People Can Fly (makers of the cult classic Painkiller) and Epic Games (Gears of War and the Unreal series and engine) wanted to make a game that broke that staleness. What we got is Bulletstorm, currently the best game I've played this year. It's unique, has likeable and engaging characters, looks excellent, and is just plain fun and what more can you ask for?

Basically Bulletstorm is what you get when you combine a First-Person shooter with the Wii title MadWorld. I'm going to make a lot of comparisons and references to MadWorld in this review because it was constantly on my mind while playing this. So what makes Bulletstorm such an excellent title? Well, let's jump in.

Kill with Skill (and a boot to the head)

STORY

Bulletstorm's story is set in the 26th century where a space pirate named Grayson Hunt is attempting to get revenge on a man named General Sarrano, a leader of a black ops army called Dead Echo, who he used to work for and was betrayed by many years ago. When he has the general in his sights, things go bad bringing down both Grayson's ship and the general's ship. Grayson is joined by his friend Ishi Sato who becomes a cyborg to heal his injuries following the crash. The last character in the cog is Trishka, a member of Sarrano's army who joins forces with them just to survive.

(L-R) Ishi Sato, Trishka, and Grayson Hunt

The story is generally pretty predictable and for a few points was hard for me to follow as they tried to explain the history of the planet they were on. But then again, the story wasn't meant to be a strong suit anyway.

Where the strength for the story really comes in are the characters who are surprisingly engaging. I found them to be much more interesting and memorable than any of the characters in Gears of War. They have motives that are alluded to and well-done backstories and the relationships between the four characters that I mentioned are also surprisingly compelling.

They're also helped by the profane-ridden dialogue which, while being hilarious, also gives the characters a bit more life. The writing for the dialogue may not reach Mass Effect or Uncharted level of quality, but I doesn't really have to. It was more engaging than I expected. They're also aided by the voice, particularly two voice actors, but we'll get to them later. Even with the annoying cliffhanger and somewhat weak storytelling, the characters had me invested and make me want to see a sequel.

GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN

This is where Bulletstorm was meant to shine and does. As I said before, it's essentially MadWorld if you turned it into an FPS. Since MadWorld tanked in the sales, I'm assuming most of you haven't played it (shame on you) so let me give a brief description. In MadWorld you played as Jack, a man who infiltrates a game show called "DeathWatch" where people murder each other (better than it sounds). In the game you had to kill people in as gruesome and creative ways as possible to get a higher score and progress (wow it really sounds sadistic when I type it).

Bulletstorm is kind of like that but there differences. You don't need a certain amount of points to progress but you do need them to upgrade and purchase new weapons and ammo. You get more points by pulling off "Skillshots" of which there are 131, each with their own titles, often innuendos. For example, kill with a headshot gets you more points than simply killing, sending into an absurdly sharp cactus gets you the "Pricked" skillshot, killing with an ass-shot gets the "Rear Entry" etc.

Yeah I've heard that bullets can be bad for your throat.

The developers really thought of every possible way to get creative. There are skillshots for any occasion, skillshots for a particular weapon, and skillshots that can only be attained on certain stages. Throw in the slide and kick and the leash which allows you to pull enemies towards you, into objects or slam them on the ground with a shockwave and you have a lot of latitude making it inexcusable to play through the game just trying to kill things without thought.

The controls are tight and the maps are well-laid out with multiple opportunities to exploit environmental skillshots along with the skillshots for your weapons and the pacing for both the story and gameplay is excellent with some really awesome set-pieces thrown in. It's not an incredibly difficult game until the end (on normal, plan on it playing on harder difficulties later) but I didn't have a problem since the game encouraged creative thinking and that would have been difficult with a very challenging game.

Now he's radioactive. That can't be good.

The main campaign is really short, around 5 to 7 hours. But it's got multiple difficulty settings and it's fun to go back in to get some of skillshots you have attained yet. And there are also two other gameplay types.

First up is Echoes which is where you go through the different single-player maps as quickly as possible well getting as many skillshots as possible. There's a 3-star rating system. Get more points in a shorter amount of time, get more stars. Get enough stars and you unlock new maps. It's a fun way to test yourself to see just how well you can do and it can take practice to get the three stars on certain maps.

The last mode is Anarchy which is where you play with a up to three other players online against a horde enemies and try to accumulate the required amount of points before the wave is depleted. Think of it like Gears of War's horde mode only here, it's not about killing all the enemies but getting as many as possible while doing it. If you don't get the required amount, you don't move to the next wave and try it over. This mode also allows for team skillshots and certain environmental ones not in the main game. For example Tug-of-War where you and another player pull an enemy apart by hitting him with your leashes at the same time.

The game doesn't have traditional multiplayer and yes, is definitely short, but like any well-designed game, it's one that will keep you coming back because of how much fun it is.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

I mentioned the voice acting before and now it's time to delve into it. The developers managed to get two of the most talented voice actors (well actor and actress) in the industry. First up is Grayson Hunt voiced by Steve Blum, aka Grunt from Mass Effect 2, Oghren from Dragon Age: Origins, Spike from Cowboy Bebop and coincidentally Jack from MadWorld. With his near 400 credits on IMDB he's kind of the Christopher Lee of voice acting. He's hammy and over-the-top and delivers a fun and energetic performance bring Grayson to life.

For Trishka, they got my favorite voice actress, Jennifer Hale. You know Commander Shepard (the DEFINITIVE Shepard), Bastila Shan, Naomi Hunter, and Samus Aran (though she didn't really say anything). Like Steve Blum, she delivers a hammy performance (unusual for her) and you can tell that Hale really enjoyed herself making this game.

Both of them are very talented people and deliver very fun performances that complement their characters and the storyline. The other voice actors are also good but I was very happy to hear those two in this game.

The sound effects and music are great as the weapons and death noises give you a feeling that you're tearing through the opposition and making the screaming of the enemies satisfying as hell. Yes you will turn into Kefka from Final Fantasy VI (look it up if you don't know). The music while a little generic will make you want to keep going and kicking ass.

Graphically, for the most part Bulletstorm looks great. Using the Unreal 3.5 graphics engine, the environments are beautiful and sometimes quite colorful. It's just very pleasing to the eye. The character models on the other hand, while they generally look pretty good, sometimes suffer in the cutscenes...badly. Sometimes facial details are totally gone making it look like someone took an eraser to the face and left some detail but took out most of it. It can kill the mood of a scene and was really annoying.

CONCLUSION

Bulletstorm delivers on its promises in brilliant ways giving us a unique first-person shooter experience and gameplay type with fun characters, excellent design, and fluid gameplay. It's campaign may be really short so I do suggest renting but if you're a big FPS fan and want to see something new, this game is for you.

Please don't pick it up just for the Gears of War 3 beta. This is a game that deserves to be picked up because of how good it is, not just for the icing on the cake. A quality game, Bulletstorm is currently my favorite game of this year.