-Edited by Kuma
This was a very…interesting title to say the least, having the shooting style of a modern CoD game with interesting takes on weapons and a manly, super-silly military f#@k you attitude, which is ironic considering probably the most badass character in the game is the one female character, Trishka. If anything, this game is the true definition of an underappreciated diamond in the rough. The gameplay by itself props this game up to the stage where it should be played at least once through. You see besides the immature humor, mostly flat characters, and the predictable cliché story, the gameplay itself it what most people will take away.
The gameplay starts out as your basic Call of Duty, well scratch that not CoD, I would relate the shooty part of the game and the general atmosphere to be more along the lines of Gears of War. Military mans-mans-men IN SPAAAAACE (que Portal Space Personality Core) the tutorial takes you through Greyson’s ship and crew as they perform the clichéd FPS tutorial of interacting with buttons and crouching under things that just so happen to fall over and land at just the right distance. I’m mainly pointing out the clichés and came into this game with a general idea that it was going to blow my mind, considering that a portion of the advertisement was spent on spoofing the two biggest FPS games at the time Halo 3 and Call of Duty. The now gone graysonbelieves.com had a jab at Halo 3 diorama ad and the free downloadable game Duty Calls (you can still download and play that today (10/26/2015)) completely going full parody on the story mode and shooting, as well as the rank up system within the Call of Duty franchise. Thing is, Bulletstorm does many of the things that they parody in Duty Calls, from regenerating health to quick time events and incredibly linear gameplay, granted the guns are far more interesting and over the top and the story is….well I’ll save that for the next paragraph. The gameplay is intense, hilarious, and satisfying. I found myself wanting to pick it back up just to see the numbers and names for all the different ways you can kick around, lasso with an electro whip, kill, murder, dismember, humiliate, decapitate, and in general do horrible things to the enemies that you come across. The game rewards you for these things and gives you bonuses in points, which are spent on ammo and weapon upgrades, for being as creative as possible in your murdering spree. Nothing makes you feel like a badass as when monsters come running at you, ready to tear you limb from limb only to be kicked back into re-bar that’s sticking out of the concrete, getting impaled and having the words ‘voodoo’ flash on your screen multiple times and the game awards you 100 points each. I won’t be touching the multiplayer aspect in this overview as I waited for at least a half hour in both queues with no games found, I guess people aren’t still playing the game 4 years later.
Where the game falls flat in my opinion is the story and characterization. The villain is completely one-dimensional and evil for the sake of being evil. The main character, Greyson, should be re-named Logan (or James depending on how far this rabbit hole goes) because he looks exactly like Wolverine and has regenerating health in the game to boot. Actually, comparing him to Wolverine is not a bad way to sum up his character type, he’s a drunkard asshole who finds fun in killing people, but at the same time really cares about the people close to him, sometimes (read; all the time), to a maddening degree. His actions are incredibly questionable from the beginning, I’m not talking about the drunken tutorial either, but just how much he expects out of his crew, or how much he is willing to sacrifice. Conversely, I could be looking wayyyyy to deep into this and shouldn’t be asking these kinds of questions, play it! Make your own opinions! Also, there’s Ishi who I really didn’t like due to him complaining constantly and being in general a stick in the mud for almost the entire game.
To put it bluntly, you should play this game, look for it on a steam sale and pick it up, worth for the sweet, sweet gameplay. You will spend quite a bit of time just trying to accomplish all the different named ways you can dispense enemies with all the different weapons. At the same time though, don’t expect much out of the story or characters, there are a few moments of actual humor, but the rest is blatant, crude, childish, borderline offensive dialogue. As one review put it; it’s an incredibly deep and complex game hidden within a stupid one. 7/10.
-Wyldkard
Thanks everybody, and stay Kultured!
This was a very…interesting title to say the least, having the shooting style of a modern CoD game with interesting takes on weapons and a manly, super-silly military f#@k you attitude, which is ironic considering probably the most badass character in the game is the one female character, Trishka. If anything, this game is the true definition of an underappreciated diamond in the rough. The gameplay by itself props this game up to the stage where it should be played at least once through. You see besides the immature humor, mostly flat characters, and the predictable cliché story, the gameplay itself it what most people will take away.
The gameplay starts out as your basic Call of Duty, well scratch that not CoD, I would relate the shooty part of the game and the general atmosphere to be more along the lines of Gears of War. Military mans-mans-men IN SPAAAAACE (que Portal Space Personality Core) the tutorial takes you through Greyson’s ship and crew as they perform the clichéd FPS tutorial of interacting with buttons and crouching under things that just so happen to fall over and land at just the right distance. I’m mainly pointing out the clichés and came into this game with a general idea that it was going to blow my mind, considering that a portion of the advertisement was spent on spoofing the two biggest FPS games at the time Halo 3 and Call of Duty. The now gone graysonbelieves.com had a jab at Halo 3 diorama ad and the free downloadable game Duty Calls (you can still download and play that today (10/26/2015)) completely going full parody on the story mode and shooting, as well as the rank up system within the Call of Duty franchise. Thing is, Bulletstorm does many of the things that they parody in Duty Calls, from regenerating health to quick time events and incredibly linear gameplay, granted the guns are far more interesting and over the top and the story is….well I’ll save that for the next paragraph. The gameplay is intense, hilarious, and satisfying. I found myself wanting to pick it back up just to see the numbers and names for all the different ways you can kick around, lasso with an electro whip, kill, murder, dismember, humiliate, decapitate, and in general do horrible things to the enemies that you come across. The game rewards you for these things and gives you bonuses in points, which are spent on ammo and weapon upgrades, for being as creative as possible in your murdering spree. Nothing makes you feel like a badass as when monsters come running at you, ready to tear you limb from limb only to be kicked back into re-bar that’s sticking out of the concrete, getting impaled and having the words ‘voodoo’ flash on your screen multiple times and the game awards you 100 points each. I won’t be touching the multiplayer aspect in this overview as I waited for at least a half hour in both queues with no games found, I guess people aren’t still playing the game 4 years later.
Where the game falls flat in my opinion is the story and characterization. The villain is completely one-dimensional and evil for the sake of being evil. The main character, Greyson, should be re-named Logan (or James depending on how far this rabbit hole goes) because he looks exactly like Wolverine and has regenerating health in the game to boot. Actually, comparing him to Wolverine is not a bad way to sum up his character type, he’s a drunkard asshole who finds fun in killing people, but at the same time really cares about the people close to him, sometimes (read; all the time), to a maddening degree. His actions are incredibly questionable from the beginning, I’m not talking about the drunken tutorial either, but just how much he expects out of his crew, or how much he is willing to sacrifice. Conversely, I could be looking wayyyyy to deep into this and shouldn’t be asking these kinds of questions, play it! Make your own opinions! Also, there’s Ishi who I really didn’t like due to him complaining constantly and being in general a stick in the mud for almost the entire game.
To put it bluntly, you should play this game, look for it on a steam sale and pick it up, worth for the sweet, sweet gameplay. You will spend quite a bit of time just trying to accomplish all the different named ways you can dispense enemies with all the different weapons. At the same time though, don’t expect much out of the story or characters, there are a few moments of actual humor, but the rest is blatant, crude, childish, borderline offensive dialogue. As one review put it; it’s an incredibly deep and complex game hidden within a stupid one. 7/10.
-Wyldkard
Thanks everybody, and stay Kultured!