Zero Punctuation: Bulletstorm

[Eclectic Dreck]

Entertaining review, but I believe Bulletstorm is not supposed to be thought about very hard.

If it wasn't meant to be thought about it would avoid doing things like:

Offering an explanation for a mechanic that, in the context of the world, seems short sighted and insane.

Wrangle a series of words into a phrase that makes no sense, then have the player character point out that it makes no sense, followed by doing the former a trillion more times.

Attempt to justify my murders of a planet full of people.

Make me somehow feel bad for murdering said planet full of people.

Simultaneously make me lament the loss of characters the game never bothered to characterize while offering plenty of evidence that suggests the world was probably better off without them mass murdering whatever happens to be handy.


In short, if you don't want me to think about the things I'm doing in the game, don't present me with questions and scenarios that ask me to do precisely that. Unreal never questioned the morality of murdering the denizens of some god forsaken garden world, doom never dared wonder if shooting Satan in the face was the correct choice and painkiller never really tried to question just why Heaven needed a hitman.

 

[Rad Party God]

For the first time, in a long, long time, I agreed to mostly everything Yahtzee said about the game. The game is a far cry from what People Can Fly used to be with Painkiller. The game doesn't decide if it wants to be serious or a parody or something.

I mean, I liked it and it was a good diversion for a weekend, but that's it, it's not an earth shattering game, it's just Gears of War meets Painkiller. The thing is, that, while the game wanted to be an epic space opera at times, it doesn't feel as fun and engaging as Painkiller, Doom, or my newest love, Serious Sam.

So yeah, I'd say that, for console gamers, just rent it and enjoy it for a weekend, and for PC gamers, wait for the price to go down, there are lots of games already available that are a lot much better than this. Or better yet, buy Serious Sam and/or Painkiller instead.

 

[Flauros]

If you listen closely, you can hear its actually a good review....

 

[somonels]

It has been too long since I enjoyed his reviews. The part with Epic and People Can Fly actually made me laugh by being funny, or unexpected.

 

[xPixelatedx]

I could almost not finish the demo for this game. I saw what they were trying to do, and that was respectable, but they weren't achieving it and the more they failed the more painful it was to play. Also all the references to penises and anuses made me very uncomfortable. I would have found that to be hilarious when I was 14, but I'm not 14 anymore and now when a guy talks about that all day it usually is anything but funny.

That said, I can't really stand Bulletstorm. And sadly I could not even figure out why. It just had no soul. It felt packaged and synthetic.

That's because they were trying to package 'arcady fun' which is something most game developers in the world no longer understand. You might as well be trying to package acting talent, or child-like innocence.

Now I think about it I don't remember ANYONE complaining about unrealism in shooters in the 90s.

God I miss the 90s....

Games today are made by tens of thousands of drones in a sterile environment working for a humorless suit (often being Microsoft). There is simply no feasible way for them to achieve the character and fun factor of games in the 90's, and the harder bulletstorm tried, the more it failed.

 

[Sarahcidal]

i'm somewhat surprised that he didnt mention the special gun with fire and tits..
though i imagine it isnt exactly what he meant.. they just tossed a little sticker of firey bosoms on the side off the gum.. i imagine yahtzee would like the gun to have actually been on fire.. and to actually have had tits.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Realism sucks. There, I've said it.

Give us ESCAPISM. That's why we're here.

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

I'm surprised he didn't mention that they answered his wish to have a gun that had tits on fire on it. Sure, it was just a painting on a gun, but it was a nice little call out to his Painkiller review.

Yeah, i wonder did he forget to mention it or is he so much above us that he can't be bothered by such things.

 

[vrbtny]

Bit of a shame that People Can Fly didn't just make a new Painkiller.

Er.... no it isn't. The Painkiller sequels slowly go down hill and are generally sucky.

Bulletstorm is better than most of the sequels.

 

[Dark.Kantian]

I couldn't agree more, Yahtzee. Whatever good elements of mindless violence were resurrected in Bulletstorm from the crypts of mighty ancient first-person shooters, all that was invariably covered over with the shit and piss of modern day "realism".

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Good review

 

[The Electro Gypsy]

lol that was about as negative as I thought it'd be.

Personally I really enjoyed Bulletstorm, and it didn't come across as the Chest High Wall Shooter Yahtzee thought it was, granted, you do need to take cover, but that's in every shooter...

I found the super macho chars to be satirical, but the main char's whine did get on my nerves by the end, and it looked quite good.

Also, he's a loser cos he got it on Console, not PC

 

[blindthrall]

Hey Escapist, the ad for that retarded shogun game fucked up the video. Apparently once the browser loaded the ad, it thought it was done. Nice to see where your priorities lie.

 

[Levethian]

Bit of a shame that People Can Fly didn't just make a new Painkiller.

Er.... no it isn't. The Painkiller sequels slowly go down hill and are generally sucky.

Bulletstorm is better than most of the sequels.

Don't think People Can Fly made any sequels. As far as I'm aware, the released 'sequels' were basically mods/expansions by 3rd party developers.

And none of them are called 'Painkiller 2'

 

[Balaxe]

I thought the skill shot system was a great way to encourage players to try and use other ways to kill their opponents then just the plain spray-bullets-at-them-till-they-die method. Killing someone with the machine gun is 10 points. Shooting someone through the throat, attaching an explosion to them, kicking them into a spiked wall and detonating the body is over 100 points.

 

[BigText]

I never got to play Doom or Painkiller, but I never once felt as though my character was slow. Then again, I just used leash-and-kick all damn day, so I was too busy bringing enemies to me to complain about bringing myself to them. Also, burnouts cluster together all the time until they get close to you. I remember one fantastic experience of leashing a burnout, attaching grenades to him, kicking him into an oncoming group of burnouts, killing him with the sniper rifle, and marveling as the grenades exploded anyway, killing all burnouts nearby, showering me with points.

Also, it never seemed like the main character couldn't choose between being angsty or being an insane killing machine. He started out as the latter, then moved to the former as he realized the number of consequences his actions had.

Yahtzee admitted that he had (some) fun with the game, though, and I guess that's all a person can really get.

 

[DRSH1989]

Bulletstorm is... booring.

 

[Kyouki1980]

I do love Painkiller. I still play it on the hardest setting as I futilely struggle to complete it and grind my teeth in frustration as I die over and over again yet deep in my heart I love the pain.
Theres nothing fun about these triple A shooters. Their all the same, their short, the weapons are boring and the gameplay sucks. We need more Painkillers and Stalkers in our lives. Games that give us the gameplay we love so much and then crank up the difficulty to brain aneurysm levels.

 

[RA92]

Plus - damn you UDK, that makes all games look the same even though it's a powerfull modern engine!

I think what you mean is UE3, since UDK is a freeware development kit with a promising <url=http://www.udk.com/showcase>showcase of indie games.

And I don't think blaming the engine is the right thing to do, considering games with as diverse styles as Mass Effect, Bioshock, Singularity, Dark Void and Arkham Asylum were made with the same engine. Blame the game developers.

No mention of the tits on fire thing. Sad!

I watched the review hoping for that. x.x;!

Remember when Rebecca Mayes wrote an entire song about Yahtzee, and all she got was a passing mention worth about two seconds in his next review? Anyways, good thing he didn't mention the tits on fire - he would've probably made some snide remark about how it was more like bra-on-fire, with no chance of sucking up to them and relenting in his brutality.

Realism sucks. There, I've said it.

Give us ESCAPISM. That's why we're here.

I'm sorry. CoD and GoW don't do realism. Regenerative health is not realistic. 'Lone Wolf' style gameplay is not realistic. What they do is uber-cliched and bad escapism.

The last realistic game I played, way back in the late 20th Century, was Falcon 4.0. And it was awesome.