Tuesday, March 1, 2011

REVIEW: Bulletstorm

There is something vaguely familiar about all of this. I feel like I've been here before. You know, they say nothing is original anymore, and you see it everywhere. Music samples from earlier music (which usually ends in the new music sucking). Newer music samples from the music that just sampled the older music (also sucks). Movies are being 'rebooted' (sucks). American television shows are being either rebooted, or are directly ripped off from British Television (the result of which is pretty sucky in nature). With video games, its more there is a trend that gets set and is repeated and then variants are built from it. The side scroller. The first person shooter. The RPG. The JRPG. The MMORPG. 3D. Even with that, I think video games can differ from other media in that although they follow a certain predictable pattern, if done properly, they can stand out as unique through milieu, presentation, and gameplay.

Bulletstorm doesn't.

I could just end things right here and simply tell you what this game Frankensteins together. However, that wouldn't be fair and that lets me off the hook way to easily. So I'm going to show you but also say a couple of good things as well. I will start of by saying that Bulletstorm is not a bad game. There shouldn't be points taken away because a game isn't extraordinary, or redefines a genre, or is life altering. Which is good, because this game isn't extraordinary, genre definitive or life altering in anyway.

You are Marcus Fenix Grayson Hunt. You're a wayward mercenary, seeking revenge on the commander that you feel betrayed you and cast you out of your elite military unit. In the attempt to take revenge, you crash land on a once populated resort planet that is now overrun by mutants, convicts, and indigenous creatures.  Your mission is to escape the labyrinth of dilapidated buildings, cavernous terrain, and war-torn urban chaos, and figure out a way to exact your unpleasant reciprocity.  You aren't alone in your run of terror; your main companion from the get-go is Ishi, a fellow crewman who, during the first engagement, suffers a catastrophic injury and must become half cyborg in order to sustain his life. You will also gain another companion about a third of the way in that knows the ropes of the city and will help you get through (though she doesn't trust you much).

C'Mon, Sal. The Tigers are playin'...to-night!
Early on you will acquire your trusty machine gun, and...what I can only describe as your "power whip". Its an attachment that you'll use to grab either items or people. As you move through the game, you are able to grab more weapons, upgrade them, and enable their special abilities.

You earn your upgrades and are able to buy ammo through points you accumulate through kills. You just shoot a guy a billion times until he dies? Ten points and boring. You aren't buying a lot of bullets with that. Kick him into a a mutated cactus? How about a hundred points. Blow up that explosive object next to four guys? Fifty points each (times four). THAT is how you accumulate your experience currency. Its simple to grasp, and pretty fun to toy around with, trying to pull of 'kill trick shots' just because you can. Its very arcade-like, and something that you may have experienced before.
Whoops, wrong game. But do you see what I mean? 

One thing I do want to point out that is an overwhelming positive about the game, and something that is praised in almost every review I've read, is that the environment and look of the game is totally gorgeous. Though the controls are somewhat clunky (you can't jump, buttons can be slow to react when you want to change weapons or target something), but the landscape, the action, the characters, movement, all just fantastically rendered. There are times where it almost has a Borderlands feel to it, some have that cell shaded feel, but there are definitely elements that are staples of Epic games style animation.

If you had honestly told me that Bulletstorm was a 'Gears of War' side story, part of the cannon, just sans the main characters I would have believed you. Its first person instead of third, but when you run, the camera gets that familiar blur. When you shoot, you need a hailstorm of bullets to take someone down, if you can get in a good decap, that feels the same.
Ishi the Killer. 
Even the banter and speech in which Grayson carries himself is all very...Gearsish. That banter, among other things, landed the game under a little bit of scrutiny from our resident mega media squeaky wheel. They felt that the crude sexual comments Grayson (and later on General Serrano) makes, the names of some of your killing moves, extra bonus points awarded for shooting enemies in their nether parts, all made Bulletstorm the beacon that summons young children to mischief.  Trust me; there are better other games more vulgar, more gratuitous, and more gore-laden than Bulletstorm. This is not the pole in which to waive the "video games corrupt children" flag. The game is rated M for a reason: and honestly, its not really even a very good one. The crudeness is forced. The gore isn't anything new. You've seen it before, you've heard it before.

This is where I talk about the multiplayer aspect of the game, but instead of deathmatch or anything like that, we get a co-op horde mode. I played a few games, and was pretty much done with it. I've mentioned in years past that games with good stand alone single player campaigns really don't need multiplayer. Bulletstorm needs multiplayer. Although I usually suck at Epic games that have multiplayer (Gears, Unreal Tournament), I think I would have enjoyed what they could have thrown together in close spaces or a large landscape using the weapons from the campaign. While I won't count the lack of true multiplayer against the game, the fact the single player campaign clocks in under seven hours playing on normal difficulty, it would have been something nice to extend what is otherwise a rental at best.

Bulletstorm is what it is. Short and unoriginal. But what it also is, honestly, it is fun. Its a quick ride, but despite what you may think reading the words above, I didn't hate the game. Its a quick, not very frustrating (at least at the level I played), sometimes smirk-inducing, mindless game thats fun to look at and fun to play. In short...

TL;DR -

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