Bulletstorm has heard the Word, and the Word is the first-person shooter genre has gone stale and is in need of a revival. Armed with over-the-top weapons, a host of one-liners and a few tricks up its padded sleeves Bulletstorm aims to give it some CPR by encouraging players to ‘kill with skill’. According to developer People Can Fly, Bulletstorm “Puts the fun back in first-person shooters.” We’ll see about that in our Bulletstorm review.
We first saw Bulletstorm in action at first hand back in May 2010. Creative Director Adrian Chmielarz from developer People Can Fly told us that Bulletstorm will make first-person shooter (FPS) games fun once more.
You see, despite some great FPS games releasing in 2010 in the form of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Halo: Reach and the record-breaking Call of Duty: Black Ops, there’s a growing feeling that the genre needs a reinvigorating kick up the jacksy. Part of the marketing campaign even saw a four-minute parody game called Duty Calls get released seemingly mocking the Call of Duty games for being generic.
So how does Bulletstorm go about avoiding the dreaded clichéd label? By rewarding players with points not just for killing enemies, but for how they do so using Skill Shots to creatively kill enemies.
Skill Shots are tricks you perform using the weaponry at your disposal. For instance shooting an enemy in the crotch leaves them in immense pain. Putting them out of their misery by kicking them in their head nets you a Mercy Skill Shot and 100 points. Regular kills earn just 10 points. So it pays to kill in style.
As we’ve just touched on, you can kick enemies, this tactic can also be used to send them flying into spikes, cacti or make them drop great heights for a Vertigo bonus. The Bullet Slide works in similar fashion – it’s like a sliding Kung-Fu sweep.
Even more key is the Energy Leash that works like a Chameleon’s tongue. It sticks onto your enemy and sends them flying in your direction in slow motion; giving you a precious few seconds to decide how to despatch them. Do you constantly shoot them the boring old FPS way as they fly towards you? That won’t score many points. Or do you attach grenades to them using your Flail Gun before booting them back from whence they came, detonating the grenade as they collide into other baddies for a Gang Bang multiplier Skill Shot bonus? That’s Bulletstorm right there.
It’s a mechanic that extends in both the single player campaign and its single player online and multiplayer modes. And one we’re pleased to say manages to give Bulletstorm its own identity. More importantly, it’s fun. You don’t have to play this way, but embrace it and its a system that’s deeper than kicking enemies in the groin. Besides, you’re more likely to upgrade your weapons faster, making it worth your while.
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The single player campaign has you in the footsteps of man’s man protagonist and space pirate Grayson Hunt – a stubble wearing soldier with a fondness for foul language. He’s part of a secret army called Dead Echo, but was discharged after his commanding officer, General Sarrano betrayed him. Grayson Hunt wants to exact revenge, so he leads a revolt. We won’t spoil why. But it’s as damn good a reason as any for wanting to get one over a former boss.
Needless to say, things go very wrong and you, along with your cyborg partner Ishi Sato crash-land and are left stranded on planet Stygia – a once thriving planet left in tatters and overrun with mutant meat-munching plants, cannibalistic tribes and gun-toting monsters. And you both want off.
Things start off somewhat empty handed. You don’t start with the ability to perform Skill Shots, nor do you have many weapons at your disposal. It’s only when you acquire the Energy Leash (you won’t have long to wait) that you’re granted the ability to perform Skill Shots.
Gradually you’ll earn more weapons. The beauty of Bulletstorm’s inventory is that each weapon is a genuine game-changer; affecting how you approach enemies and what Skill Shots you can perform.
The Flail Gun fires two grenades attached by a chain that wraps around enemies. Once it’s wrapped around them, either wait for it to explode or press fire to detonate it yourself. It’s great for putting enemies in their tracks. The Bouncer fires off large bouncing grenades that can be booted like explosive footballs of pain into crowds of incoming enemies. The Boneduster is a Frankenstein of a shotgun. It has four barrels. You guess the rest.
There are plenty more, each with their own secondary fire function for double the carnage. You can equip up to three weapons, and change them only at certain points, lending some tactical edge to gun choice. Embrace each and there’s plenty of ways to play Bulletstorm.
Visually Bulletstorm looks great thanks to Epic Games‘ (the studio also had a toe in Bulletstorm’s design) Unreal Engine providing graphics on par with the developer’s other key shooter, Gears of War. Each setting is incredibly detailed right down to the most minute pieces of rubble left over from the devastation around you. The scale is enormous. A healthy dash of greens, yellows and orange makes a welcome change from the drab colour palettes of recent wartime shooters.
We won’t spoil it too much, but the campaign takes place across a myriad settings within Stygia. You find yourself fighting in discotheques, burning enemies to a cinder while The Trammps’ Disco Inferno plays in the background, encounter dinosaurs, take down helicopters single handedly and take on a screen-filling human-eating plant in an epic boss battle among several others.
Sniper fans will be satisfied too. But you won’t find any Call of Duty copycat stealth missions here. Bulletstorm is all about going for the jugular; sometimes literally. Shoot an enemy in the throat for a Gag Reflex Skill Shot. Fifty points! You’re not limited to using firearms. There are exploding barrels and hotdog stands to kick at enemies too. Using the environment in such a way gets you Enviro Mental Skill Shot points.
The campaign is made all the more entertaining thanks to the game’s humour. In one scene, Grayson Hunt takes control of an enemy weapon he quips: “Like taking candy from a grown man.” In another, Grayson is told to “shoot the tentacles” of a monster, to which Grayson quips “You did say tentacles, right?” There are plenty more, funnier examples, but we don’t wish to spoil such moments.
That Bulletstorm never takes itself seriously makes its campaign all the more enjoyable. Each character has their own personality, the weapons and Skill Shots combine to form a mechanic that is both fun and useful. And there is a genuine plot within all the madness.
Multiplayer
Aiding the single player campaign is the Anarchy multiplayer mode – a four-player co-op survival mode against waves of mutants. Reach the desired score using your most imaginative Skill Shots and you progress onto the next wave, putting People Can Fly’s creative killing mechanic to slightly more compulsory use. The beauty of this mode is that players can team up to notch insane, visceral and disturbing Skill Shots only possible in co-op.
Even more intriguing is the Echoes mode, which takes some of the best levels from the game and turns them into Tony Hawk’s style skills courses. Instead of pulling off Ollies and Grinds you perform Skill Shots using your guns in order to to get the best score possible.
As gamers have already seen in the demo it’s surprisingly addictive. Some players have already played the demo over 1,000 times prior to release. And that’s just one level. From what we’ve played there are at least nine more to unlock by attaining enough stars to progress to the next stage, with the possibility of more to arrive or unlock in future. Most likely as DLC. But it’s already a phenomenon.
Already there are hundreds of YouTube videos on the web with players showing off their shooting skills, and there’s sure to be hundreds more. People Can Fly and Epic Games have created something special sure to be copied by others in some capacity. That a thriving community of Bulletstorm players trying to outdo the scores of others exists prior to Bulletstorm’s release speaks volumes.
Bulletstorm might be lacking a competitive multiplayer mode, and for many that will suck big time, but the game’s developers argue that it’s more fun to perform Skill Shots than be on the end of them, as some of them have enemies static for at least a few seconds. That the developers chose not to cave in at least gives Bulletstorm’s online more focus.
Verdict
A co-op single player mode has also been left out after originally being planned but then scrapped – reportedly because it wouldn’t work with some of the set-pieces. It was the right decision. When this game lands in the hands of gamers, the biggest criticism will be that the Skill Shot system gets repetitive. Perhaps it is, but repetitive doesn’t have to mean boring.
Bulletstorm is a breath of fresh air to a genre seemingly lacking real gameplay innovation. If FPS fans wanted a triple-A shooter that offers something different from the current breed of surly shooters, Bulletstorm is it.
Bulletstorm is a game that doesn’t take itself seriously. And for that alone it stands apart from most FPS games out there. And in its Echoes single player online mode, combined with the Skill Shot system, People Can Fly and Epic have created something unique.
Bulletstorm is released on 25 February 2011 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC
