Epic: Bulletstorm "Didn't Make Money For Us"

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

I walked into a shop on release day, specifically to buy Bulletstorm.

I saw "Games for Windows Live" on the box.

I left without buying it.

Every game with GfWL attached has been a complete disaster for me *beacuse* of GfWL, and I'm now boycotting it completely.

Exactly. Except for the "walking into a shop" part, because I saw online a little before it came out that they were using GFWL with it, and that abruptly killed all interest I had in the game. It suddenly went from "Holy crap! New People Can Fly game! Painkiller's one of my favorite games ever!" to not even caring at all. It's one of those "Oh well, that's a pity..." games I'd like to play but probably won't because of stupid crap like that, like Arkham Asylum.

 

[Treblaine]

"The studio has shipped AAA content," he said.

Talking in terms like "AAA content" that who is surprised they failed?

This game had none of the charm, the spark, the engaging game-play of Painkiller.

It was not the subversion of the genre nor even a pastiche, it fell into the same god damn predictable cliches.

My personal peves are:

-as fun as it is to whip an enemy close and boot him away... it's not fun the 100th time. It becomes so boring you wonder how you ever found it fun. There is so little flexibility to it, whip em close - contrived slow-mo - then kick them back.

I much preferred Bioshock, with such a wide range of abilities to mix and match them around in so many combinations.

Also the weapons arsenal is gone and is plays like my legs are made of jelly.

Painkiller I was bunnyhopping all over the place. Bulletstorm there is a sprint button. WHY is there a sprint button? I should always be sprinting! And able to shoot while sprinting. Have me bunny hop for extra speed in a straight line.

What the fuck did Epic Games do to the People-Can-Fly studio?

 

[l3o2828]

Painkiller was better (somewhat) anyways.
Yeah, it's sad. But then again, they brought it onto themselves.

 

[the spud]

Well, at least Gears 3 will make them enough money to buy Switzerland and 3 carribean islands as compensation.

yes but thats the point.
back to cover base shooting at generic muscular humanoid monsters with high doses of masculinity in the air mixed with sexual orientation uncertainty.

*sadface*


i really do not understand whats the problem with games for windows live.
can someone be so kind as to explain/rant about it?

I really don't mind. It gives them funds for more interesting projects, and gears has always been known for really polished gameplay.

 

[Levethian]

Gut reaction to this article was 'good'.

Unless you let the Painkiller guys actually do their thing don't even bother with another. Accountants as much as they like to believe it can't actually make fun shooters, so let the experts do the job.

Yes yes yes.

 

[martin's a madman]

You know what? I want to play this now.

 

[Spoon E11]

I didn't buy it. Why: I thought it was gimmicky and that it's novelty value will wear off. However if there was no demo, I will have probably bought the game.

 

[Sonicron]

I has a sad. Finally a solid, silly fun shooter, and it bombs in the sales department...? I bet the folks responsible for churning out Modern Warfare and Battlefield games will have a good laugh about this... when they come up for air from diving in their ocean of money.

-EDIT-
Might actually drive down to Cologne for GDC, it's only a few hours away. Thanks for the heads-up, Escapist!

 

[Azaraxzealot]

was critically well-received

It was? Everyone I spoke to/read review from, said it was bland so never bothered to pick it up.

That and it was for GfWL, even if it was the best game we will ever make I wouldn't buy it because it uses freaking GfWL.

we're talking about consoles here, which was the focus.

in any case, i enjoyed it enough to finish it (which is more than i can say for most games *glares at Dragon Age Origins and its horrible combat*) and i WANTED to keep playing it for the echoes mode (which i loved) but i wanted EDF: Insect Armageddon more.

 

[Omnific One]

Well, since the president of Epic replied in the FB comments, I suppose I will have to put a bit more support behind a sequel. Personally, I loved Bulletstorm; it was a gorgeous, fun game. I seriously have not ever had more fun with an FPS. ALl the mainstream gamers missed it because it wasn't a CoD variation, and all the more discerning gamers ignored it because it looked like another stupid FPS.

Seriously, when it goes on sale, buy it.

Also, it was very well optimized for the PC, which is hard to find in console-centric games today.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Eh, Bulletstorm was okay. I tried to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Painkiller, but I couldn't. Part of it was the humor. It's like what would happen if Duke Nukem wanted to be taken seriously. At one point, Grayson is lamenting over his haunted past, only to follow it up with something along the lines of "Dick-shit-ass-balls-fuck-tits!" Gears of War was like that, but it was divided up between different characters. Marcus was the badass, Dom was the one with something to whine about, Cole was the pottymouth, and Baird was the cynical asshole. Try to mesh those into one character, and you get Grayson Hunt.

 

[1337mokro]

I bought it and just RUSHED through it. Seriously if you stop for a second with this game you WILL get bored and realize just how average a shooter it is. It has no replay value, the jokes are fun maybe 10% of the time and the story REALLY shifts gears quite shockingly at several moments.

Did I have fun the 6 hours it lasted? Yes. Will I buy the sequel? Not likely. I have pretty much seen all that this game had to offer. A completely linear plot, a few good jokes and some nice gunplay.

However the main problem here is Epic Games. They made this game into Gears of War: Bulletstorm.

Really this game just needed a marathon running bullet sponge as a main protagonist. Something that would allow us to get out there and kick ass without have the BLOODY SCREEN!!! SO REAL!!! bullshit.

If the sequel gets rid of the horrible tonal shifts. Going from lamenting the deaths of the crew to insane shoot outs in nanoseconds and simply focusses on making a funny fast paced shooter. I will be more inclined to buy the sequel.

At least it would raise from improbability to a probability that I would purchase it.

As a side note the game might have had a massive advantage because I had just played Homefront (Fuck that game) so for the first few hours to me Bulletstorm was like a choir of angels wielding machine-guns descending from heaven after that piece of shit.

 

[Adzma]

Isn't it amusing how so many people practically scream for new IP, yet when one comes out everyone refuses to buy it? Even if you've heard the game isn't that great, if no one ever buys new IP, they're going to stop making them eventually.

While it wasn't perfect, I thoroughly enjoyed Bulletstorm because it was a nice touch of old FPS when it wasn't all about "GRITTY REALISM LAWL HURR DURR."

 

[Zechnophobe]

For me, I was not enticed whatsoever by the advertising. Sure, I knew about the game, and I had seen a lot of adverts, but nothing there made me want to buy it. What I saw in the advertising:

1) It was a game with a 'tough guy' pseudo-persona
2) It involved some system that rated your kills

That was what I gleaned from it. The first didn't sway me, it wasn't a motif I was interested in. The second seemed really bland, yet pushed very far in advertising. Kill with Skill? Wasn't it already skillful to do these feats? It just sounded like random combo-ing for no purpose, and coldly at that. (Just a numeric value).

The funny thing is, that I SAW a friend play the game, and saw him throwing people, kicking them, and all sorts of stuff... and thought that looked fun! By then though I wasn't really looking for a new game.

In my opinion the real problem here was that the actual mechanics of the gameplay, which appeared solid, weren't ever put on display for me. I've had enough of generi-hype in my day, and there are enough lower cost alternatives, that I saw no reason to put big dollars out on this title.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

And people argue with me when I say that this type of game has more or less been relegated to the same dustbin as 80s action movies....

 

[Throwitawaynow]

The game was short and had bad multiplayer.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I thought it was highly entertaining for about two hours. After that it started wearing a bit thin, although I did persevere and finish it out of morbid curiosity.