Well this is the only review that properly addresses the fundamental problems I have with this game. It?s completely tied down by the awful bullshit of modern shooters. You can only carry 3 weapons, the levels are completely linear hallways with all the interesting scenery existing in the skybox outside the level, you have to push the alt fire button to ?prepare? shots instead of simply firing them, the game wastes the right trigger on an ADS command, you are crippled by the usual low survivability + regenerating health problem that forces you to squat behind boxes and walls instead of simply running around shooting, and the game constantly tries to pile on the retarded Gears style mantard melodrama. Much of the joy and humor is shoved right out of the game as it wastes time trying to justify mechanics. The game would be better if it shed all these crappy contrivances and sported a completely nonsensical storyline where the characters just drunkenly rampage around the universe for no readily explained reason instead of wasting my time trying to act like a movie.
Modern shooters are shit. They?re all about showing off engine effects in the form of forced non interactive scripted sequences and in-engine cutscenes rather than focusing on actual level design and gameplay. They?re held down by this dumb ass 12 year old ?I want to be in the marines when I grow up daddy? demand for realism. Any sort of fun and creativity evaporates under the corrosive cloud of realism and delusions of story depth. At this point every shooter looks and plays exactly the same. Every single one of them has the same exact military theme, every single one basically plays like a light gun game, and every single one of them is completely stagnate and devoid of any sort of interesting gameplay. You have a bunch of identical machine guns that you shoot at identical men with machine guns and everything is sequestered off into forced hand holding sequences where you're basically putting a square peg in a square hole over and over again. Walk to the end of this hallway and press the use button to put explosives on the thing.
The only modern shooter that really uses these conventions in a good way is Halo. Halo games take you through a series of sandbox battles where the space matters and everything (weapons, vehicles, turrets) is organically integrated into gameplay rather than being sequestered off into pre scripted "set piece moments." Most shooters however just copy gameplay mechanics from Halo without actually using them properly. The vehicles are sequestered off into special vehicle driving levels, the levels are all straight hallways instead of being large battlegrounds, and everything is so static and non dynamic that nothing you do matters. Either go the full dynamic path of Halo and STALKER or be like Doom and Duke Nukem 3d and be as crazy as humanly possible. Bulletstorm could have done the latter, but instead it's ruined by the usual improper co opting of Halo mechanics.
