![]() ![]() It’s also a boon to point out that Bulletstorm is one of those games rallying against the brown/grey dystopian backdrops everyone used to think was so bloody obligatory. Treks through underground cave networks have you destroying massive eggs in a rock-formed maze, desperately trying to find the exit before whatever laid your rotting obstacles finds you. Other stages, though, disguise tutorial missions by having you walk down the side of skyscrapers in magnetic boots, or have you play hide and seek with cannibalistic mutants in a scale model of a long razed town. Though Grayson gets in on the joke with his constant whoops of enthusiasm, the proxy controls are cumbersome, and locking on to targets is frustrating and unsatisfying. Some of this doesn’t work as well as it should, like taking control of a mammoth Godzilla-like mech with mini-guns embedded into it, by remote control. Why gib someone with a shotgun ( Bulletstorm’s version, by the way, is quad-barrelled) when you can launch them into a carnivorous plant, then wait for it to spew back the undigested ammo? Why bother lining up sneaky sniper shots when one of the guns available to you fires a flail chain with a grenade attached to either side?Īs such, most of my time was spent amusing myself with this ludicrous ability to end lives, abusing the environments that People Can Fly have really spent a lot of effort into getting right. ![]() Those perfect headshots and chain kills other shooters promote as gaming nirvana are, here, grey and lacklustre. The fact is, there’s so many options and rewards from killing creatively, that Bulletstorm becomes probably the only FPS where shooting someone in the face feels like you’re doing it all wrong. Bonus points gleaned from tragically brilliant deaths are then pooled as a currency to spend at waypoints, that grant him anything from more ammo, bigger magazine stocks or an overcharge that whacks on glorious overkill as secondary fire. The more creative Grayson gets, the more rewards flood in. Getting a couple of bodies airborne, then bolt them together like a shish kebab with a huge cannon that fires rotating spikes that bore into flesh? Now, that’s art. Throw someone in the air, and then cap his chums before he hits the ground? That’s better. ![]() ![]() Rope someone in and then kick him into a wall of metallic spikes or a handy nearby cactus? That’s pretty pedestrian. Being surrounded by melting mutants with firearms and axes isn’t a reason for worry, it’s a reason to celebrate you can’t feel bad for putting these poor lumpy miscreants out of their misery, so why not go a little mad, and have some fun with it?Īrmed with a small arsenal of guns that make a valid play at being more than the standard fare, and an energy lash you can lasso unfortunate targets with, the battlefield can quickly become a playground. Starting the game as a drunk, bitter, homicidal ex-vet, his constant stream of bad decisions and quick one liners land him in constant trouble, which he relishes with sadistic glee. Though moments of (usually ham-fisted) sobriety are shoehorned into the campaign, even protagonist Grayson Hunt (voiced by Steve Blum, like all those other video game characters you like) treats his smash-mouth outing like a constant adrenaline high. If that makes Bullertstorm sound in any way like it should be taken seriously, then I’ve done a slight disservice. It serves as skill system, currency well and spectacle lurking behind a small scale war sieged against a luxury resort gone radioactive, filled with drooling mutants, acidpunks and the odd elite military platoon. Similar could be said of Bulletstorm, but, here, it’s an appreciated tier, not the be all and end all. The basis of that game was to kill, murder and maim in as creative a way as possible that was its thing, and you were rewarded for being a sadistic artist, bringing new and innovative ways to end lives in gloriously over-the-top fashion. Thing is, I’d played its spiritual foundation, MadWorld back on the Wii in a hopeless attempt to give the console a shot at non-casual relevance, and it didn’t really click with me. I’d read this pretty kicking review back in the day, picked up the game, then let it collect dust on my shelf for a few years. "īulletstorm is a bit of a belated shock to me. "There’s so many options and rewards from killing creatively, that Bulletstorm becomes probably the only FPS where shooting someone in the face feels like you’re doing it all wrong. ![]()
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