Bulletstorm

                Bulletstorm starts off like many of the bland first person shooters on the market.   You play as a boring marine type pumping lead into generic targets for reasons that you don’t understand or care about.   However simplistic and boring the beginning of the game is it serves a point as the game transitions into an entertaining point fest of killing with skill utilizing humor to make this one hell of a memorable game.   Bulletstorm is not one of those shooters you will be quick to forget.

                The shooter market is plagued by a selection of “realistic” games where their quality and enjoyment comes only from either tight controls or a complex storyline.   Bulletstorms on the other hand has neither of these “necessities”.   Bulletstorm manages to entertain the gamer with its complex skillshot system, which gives you points based on the actions you perform to kill a target.   Unlike the other few games that use point based killing system, Bulletstorm manages to give great encouragement for the gamer to perform the skillshots by giving you ammo and upgrades based on your performance.   Without perform the skillshots Bulletstorm becomes way too difficult to progress through.   Bulletstorm makes you ask, “Who wouldn’t shoot that guy in the groin then kick him in the face for a few extra points?”   Many games don’t give me the same feeling of pure fun in quick bursts that Bulletstorm gives out.

                One thing constant throughout Bulletstorm is it’s overboard use of profanities.   However the profanity delivered mostly by main character, Grayson Hunt, managed to give the game a certain level of charm.   The writing of the game is so outstanding that I couldn’t stop laughing at its self aware nature brought out by the ridiculous cast of characters like your recently turned half robot friend, Ishi.   The game knows that it shouldn’t be taken seriously with many of the characters poking fun at just how ridiculous they are. If anyone still thinks that the profanity of Bulletstorm will degrade its experience they should know that both profanity and gore can be turned off in the main menu, however I wouldn’t recommend messing with either based on the game’s surprising charm.

Bulletstorm also manages to look absolutely stunning.   Running on the same Unreal Engine infamous for its brown and gray color palette, Bulletstorm looks like a beautiful colorful mess.   The designs of the characters are so colorfully ugly that they stand out in just how detailed they are, not to mention that the environments are neither realistic nor pure fantasy, but manage to combine the two in a rainbow of destruction that is just plain pleasant to look at.

                My main issue with Bulletstorm seems to be its slightly questionable longevity factor.   Most of the enjoyment you will get from Bulletstorm comes from its single player campaign or the game’s “Echoes Mode”, which plays like a round of Tony Hawk where the player tries to score as many points as possible to compete with the world on high score leader-boards.   All of that is polished and well executed however I still believe that Bulletstorm would have benefited from a stronger multiplayer experience.   As it stands Bulletstorm has one multiplayer mode, Anarchy, which is similar to the Gears of War horde mode, but now you must reach a certain amount of points to pass a round by killing enemies creatively with four other people.   Unfortunately the online system has many reports of being hard to connect to matches.   I myself have had nights where I couldn’t connect to any matches.   Even when you do get in a match many of the other players do not perform skillshots and cause you to fail round after round in a boring mess of a game.   With online multiplayer in it’s current state Bulletstorm serves to be a great game, with several patchable flaws.

                Bulletstorm truly is a one of a kind game that many people who enjoy single player games should give a shot.   The campaign is just plain fun, and many of the environments are absolutely beautiful.    But in its current buggy form the multiplayer of Bulletstorm won’t drag people away from the multiplayer of games like Halo Reach and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for a large amount of time.   Bulletstorm will greatly entertain enough for values’ sake, but it probably won’t become your game of choice with friends.