Bullet Storm, An overall ..meh

[Netrigan]

The fun part about the story is that it actually TRIES to be well-written. There's some emotional drama and lots of character development, and by the end the main character gets a great deal of maturity over the dumbass prick he was at the beginning.

The hillarious part is that most games nowadays fail at that. Congratulations, you just got outclassed by Bulletstorm, a game whose story wasn't even mentioned in advertising, nevermind being the main focus.

Yeah, in spite of a couple of early story telling mistakes (too much exposition and too many cut-scenes), it's settled into a nice groove. All the characters have clear motivations that are at odds with everyone else's... they just need each other to survive. You know how the story is going to go in broad strokes, but there's enough elements up in the air that you're not completely sure how things are going to shake out.

The game is a pretty damn good melding between a throw-back shooter and a modern game. Being able to load out weapons often means that I'm willing to experiment with guns I'm not terribly good at. Most of the story beats are told either via skippable cut-scenes or while you're running to the next fight... if it weren't for the slow walking moments (thankfully not as many as Gears), it would have a near perfect balance of story and game play for a mindless shooter. And the game knows to throw enough curve balls at you to keep the game from getting too repetitive. The boss fights have been suitably epic and the set-pieces have a nice big budget action movie feel about them.

And god help me the vulgar humor makes me laugh.

 

[Quazimofo]

Sounds like it lost a lot of its fun when you were reduced to following a list so you could tick all the skills off. A much better way to have done it would be to only show the ones you had so far found and at the most showing how many there where in total. At least then you get the fun of discovering them for yourself as you go about the obsessive process of trying to get them all.

yeah, it did loose a bit of its fun when you got the list, but the list did give me a few ideas which i may have taken much longer to come up with (flail grenade a guy then get a plant to eat him, GENIUS)

and then there are the unknowns, though many are simply story related a few i did enjoy finding out (pancake, fish food etc.), so i still did enjoy it quite thoroughly, especially in act 5 when the burnouts start coming in hordes and i got to use my shotgun and grenade flail for massive combos and their associated points.

what i think is a major missed opportunity is the lack of ability to leash guys sideways, much couldve been done with that. what i think they could do with this (and should do, and i would love to see) is create DLC Echo Maps (or something) which include new skillshots that they think up (hell, even hold a contest for new ones why not?), but let them remain unnamed, and possibly include a new gun or ability (for the love of god let me leash guys sideways!!) with the dlc, since that is basically all there is to the game. its a great way to extend the fun and make more money off of that to boot (if COD can make money by adding nothing more than maps, why cant bulletstorm make more money off of more ways to kill people for points? certainly seems more worth the cash)

all in all, solid game, nice change of pace and, most importantly, fun. but seriously

Spoiler: seriously, this is a nice surprise if you havent gotten past act 3 yet, dont ruin it for yourself

how can a game that lets you control a robo-dinosaur that shoots lazers and is named waggleton P tallywicker not be fun?

Edit: YAY I DID SPOILERS RIGHT!

 

[Quazimofo]

The fun part about the story is that it actually TRIES to be well-written. There's some emotional drama and lots of character development, and by the end the main character gets a great deal of maturity over the dumbass prick he was at the beginning.

The hillarious part is that most games nowadays fail at that. Congratulations, you just got outclassed by Bulletstorm, a game whose story wasn't even mentioned in advertising, nevermind being the main focus.

Yeah, in spite of a couple of early story telling mistakes (too much exposition and too many cut-scenes), it's settled into a nice groove. All the characters have clear motivations that are at odds with everyone else's... they just need each other to survive. You know how the story is going to go in broad strokes, but there's enough elements up in the air that you're not completely sure how things are going to shake out.

The game is a pretty damn good melding between a throw-back shooter and a modern game. Being able to load out weapons often means that I'm willing to experiment with guns I'm not terribly good at. Most of the story beats are told either via skippable cut-scenes or while you're running to the next fight... if it weren't for the slow walking moments (thankfully not as many as Gears), it would have a near perfect balance of story and game play for a mindless shooter. And the game knows to throw enough curve balls at you to keep the game from getting too repetitive. The boss fights have been suitably epic and the set-pieces have a nice big budget action movie feel about them.

And god help me the vulgar humor makes me laugh.

this indeed, like that (sorta) fight near the end where you have to kill 4 (or 5?) minibosses with all the miniboss weapons between them, with the additional support of the rest of the crazies jumping in from nowhere (only time in the game i died more than twice). bugged the crap outta me but damn it was still fun when i won, ALL HAIL THE 4 BARRELED SHOTGUN!!

in short, once again someone put it in better words than i could

 

[MaxwellEdison]

As long as it doesn't turn me into a rapist.

 

[The Blue Mongoose]

*Sits back*

Aaahhh... I pity you all that can't enjoy stupid, mindless fun shooters anymore. Hopefully none of you are looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever.

Fun to sit back and watch a thread full of negative comments about a game many in this thread haven't even played.... Cause we all know Demos show a game's full potential.

Flame all you like.. I will enjoy one of the few shooters that's not another Call of Duty clone... mmm tastey... it's good to still enjoy things.

Here is a cigar for you, sir. Let us lounge, enjoy some scotch and reminisce about Doom and Quake.

Oh, the days when blowing up everyone in the room with a gun the size of a small car was all people needed for a good time... *wistful stare*

 

[Fooz]

after trying the demo i didnt really like it, so it doesnt surprise me

 

[Gentleman_Reptile]

I was under the impression that any complaint about the dialogue being cheesy or vulgar was automatically invalid. They used the word "dicktits" in one of the ads. Come on, what did you expect? If you buy a game that's supposed to be entirely about mindless over the top violence and profanity, it's a bit foolish to be disappointed when that's what you get.

I concur. I mean, come on... "dick-tits"! With something like that, you really think the game was gonna try and be some grand adventure like Ocarina of Time or something? Conker's Bad Fur Day was just as juvenile if not more (about the only game where getting pissy drunk" takes a literal meaning) and no one saw a problem with that. So what's so wrong about this?

Conkers Bad Fur Day pulled it off because it was the first game to really just go all out with the juvenile angle in a gaming climate of family friendly mascots. But at the same time, it's gameplay was tight, the setting was colourful and entertaining, the characters were endearing (very important) and it was genuinely funny. It had a subtle charm and used its profanity in a way that you wouldnt get sick of it. You never knew where you would be next or what you would be doing. Fighting a war, escorting cheese, exploring a mountain of poo, wrangling a bull, riding a velociraptor.....it was legittimately creative and self referential which let you accept and enjoy all the childishness as part of the design.

Bulletstorm on the other hand, exists in a gaming climate of armour clad sadists, so its just trying to stick its head above everyone else by being as obnoxious as possible. Bulletstorm seems to think that just saying "dick-tits" is enough to win it a medal for humor. Vulgarity is almost never funny on it's own, it desperately needs context, even if that context is as simple as a refined figure like the queen straining to push out a poo on her royal toilet. From the first time Grayson swears, we know "Ok this guys a gruff, space pirate dude, we get it". But the game feels the need to just fucking hammer that point in over and over again, without bothering to use vulgarity in any kind of funny situation or circumstance. It's just a few arrogant, unlikeable pricks swearing and it gets painfully old very fast.

It's not funny, its not tongue in cheek, its not satirical, its not ironic, its not making a bold statement on the generic nature of modern shooters, and its certainly not clever or even very creative. It's just douchey for the sake of being douchey.

Then theres the gameplay. It's admittadly fun, the FIRST few times you whip kick a guy into a hazard, but honestly these things sound more fun than they really are in Bulletstorm. I've had more fun with whip/leash mechanics in Bloodrayne 2, and more fun with environmental damage in The Punisher. Both of those games are easily six years old and they absolutely leave Bulletstorm in the dust.

"Thats just the way its supposed to be" is not an excuse to justify stupid, unfunny diolauge, or game mechanics that become boring in the first half hour of play.

 

[DVS Storm]

Totalbiscuit's video about Bulletstrom was awesome. I'm gonna buy it tomorrow myself. I just want something different and fun to play with. The co-op looks awesome too. And to those who say that the game is repetitive: Hell yea it is. It is meant to be. Same with linearity. You are meant to play the same leves over again to improve your score. If one doesn't like that then well I can see no point in buying the game.

 

[Minky_man]

Eh played the Demo, leashed someone, then kicked them, leashed them again, kicked them again, did this about 5 times then shot them in the head.

It was 30 seconds of fun before I got bored with another unremarkable FPS but 30 seconds nonetheless

 

[ruddaga]

I also just finished the game. Hard to say whether I agree with the "meh" part. I'm not the biggest FPS fan (I'd prefer a good decent RPG) but at the same time I don't mind a punt here and there with random FPS's to see if they hold my attention long enough. I knew nothing about bulletstorm prior to playing it... I think Simon Pegg summed it best up in the movie Hot Fuzz - Well, I wouldn't argue that it wasn't a no-holds-barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. But there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork. - Ok maybe ignore the paper work line.. But the game definately has that old Serious Sam/Duke Nukem 3D feel about it. For me to actually play through a game, it has to hold my attention long enough.. So on one level I guess I did enjoy it. I found the introduction of the main characters slightly annoying.. **Spoilers** giving the fact you have this interesting team that is flying through space out for revenge... And they all get killed 5 minutes in and you get stranded on that same damn scenery planet for the entire game (when I realised this I got sad..).

Having said that the kill shots were an exciting concept (at first) running around throwing people, kicking them, shooting them in their crotch then throat... But like the OP said.. I started doing a skill shot.. then pausing.. reading the next one... repeat. After awhile I realised while slightly entertaining.. there no point to trying for all of the points since you can just do the same easy ones over and over again and still have MORE then enough points to spend on gear.

The main two characters weren't really interesting.. But I did laugh out loud at the parts where "it's so bad it's good" (the part where he named his dino toy.. classic). The weapons... Well for a game that prides itself on killing etc... They feel samey and not really that varied (also underpowered... for a game thats all about EXPLOSIONS AND FAST DEATHS POW POW, I found towards the end I could either pump 100 of the rifle bullets into a baddy, or just run up to him and one shot kick him into a spike...) . And the fact you cant just carry every weapon around is a minor PC gamers grievance. The ending is indeed setup for a "lets make a sequel if this makes money" ending.

So yeah.. All in all.. I had fun. For a little bit.. Then it slows down.. becomes repetitive.. And I found myself just finishing it because I was curious to see if there was anything else to the game. Definitely worth a rent.

 

[G-Force]

It's not funny, its not tongue in cheek, its not satirical, its not ironic, its not making a bold statement on the generic nature of modern shooters, and its certainly not clever or even very creative. It's just douchey for the sake of being douchey.

I think the game is being satirical in a small sense. I mean in a genre saturated by brown and gray graphics out comes a super colorful fast paced shooter that REWARDS players for playing things gung-ho bravado instead of cautiously camping like other games encourage. Also the point you say about the game not making a bold statement, in light of it being vasty different from modern FPSs and the game not justifying itself in its vulgarity be a bold statement in itself. It's pretty much like a guy who knows he's an asshole and instead of blaming the people around him he simply says "I'm an asshole, deal with it." In an age where people try to give weak examples to justify the violence in their works out pops a game that goes "Yeah we're not trying to be art, we say dicktits, this game is violent and stupid so either you're gonna have fun shooting people into bloody chucks or GTFO."

 

[Blubberburg]

This looked like the greatest game of all time on the trailers and me and my friend were soo hyped and then we played the demo and it felt kinda lackluster, might one day hire it out but i was put off from the demo alone

 

[Lewg999]

Having played the demo teh only problem i can see is that the game might run out of skillshots to keep things fresh( i just kept impaling people ) but it was still great fun.
Anyway im buying it tomorrow so ill have to see what i think then

 

[Danceofmasks]

On the other hand, what I might consider a skill shot might not be in the list and we end up with the problem with Scribblenauts. Maybe I want to knee-cap a guy and have that be a bonus of some kind, but if it's not what they look for, then my personal skill shot is no better than just pumping rounds into an enemy center of mass.

I'm playing it my way: trying to get the absolute minimum number of points possible.
Kickin' dudes to the ground so my buddy can finish 'em off, etc.
Upgrades? Ammo? Who needs that stuff when there's deathtraps everywhere for emergencies.

I've scored too many points so far .. I might restart and try again.
...
On maximum difficulty too, I might add.

 

[Danish rage]

Bulletstorm is amazing. Best game this year so far when it comes to Xbox360/PS3.
When Skyrim, Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 hits the shelves Bulletstorm gonna eat shit. But so far it´s a really,REALLY fun game.

 

[Daveeo]

I loved the enviroment in the game! might have been a bit repetitive but overall i did enjoy it!

 

[Jzolr0708]

Its just my opinion, but I really enjoy Bulletstorm. It wasn't made to be a sophisticated story, which is kind of dissapointing, but at it's core, it's a fun game. Theres a lot of mechanics that I've enjoyed from past games that fit in well. Sure, you'll probably find a skillshot that you'll use more than the others, but atleast thats a COMBINATION of weapons. Be honest, if you had a choice, wouldn't you always use just one or two weapons in other FPS's?

Bottomline, I found the game to just be fun to play. It tweaked Gears of War mechanics enough to make a better, faster paced shooter. The game modes are fun, and its a joy to play with friends.

Sure, it may not be the deepest story, but it was definitely worth the money.

 

[viperthejedi]

It was fun. Nothing more. And I laughed at "I'm going to kill your dick". Sums it up really. Just sit back and enjoy a lighter FPS after all the COD games of late.