The FPS market is quite saturated these days, so standing out is a must. This is what Bulletstorm does, and does well. However, as an FPS, it doesn’t offer much innovation, but it does offer a lot of fun.
Bulletstorm is an FPS made on the Unreal Engine 3, and it certainly shows, as the game shares a lot of visuals with Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. The story follows Hunt, who is on a mission of vengeance against his former boss. Bulletstorm’s action is tense throughout the campaign, but nothing is taken too seriously, as you’ll be getting extra point for “skill shots”, which are clever ways of killing enemies. However, the story and characters are quite weak, and on top of that, the dialogue is horrible. The game tries to be funny and adult with lots of jokes, one liners and cuss words, but after the first mission, these become annoying. So annoying that you just wanna mute the voices and play the game. The voice-over work for the supporting characters is bad in particular.
Gameplay wise, you’ll be doing a lot of running and shooting, exploring all the clever ways in which you can kill your enemies (and there’s a great variety of those), all while playing mission after mission in the surprisingly linear campaign. The campaign does offer a few boss fights, but those are rather easy and unoriginal. The missions themselves resemble a lot to Unreal 2 and previous Unreal games, and the Unreal influence on Bulletstorm is quite an obvious one. But also for the better, as the game looks gorgeous and the missions are simple and well-structured. We also like the fact that developers Epic and People Can Fly have opted to use a bit more colors than previous Unreal Engine 3 games (like Gears).
Multiplayer is quite limited and the mode that’s available quickly gets tiresome — it’s clear that single player was the main focus with the game, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you are to include multiplayer, why not add the regular death match and team death match modes? The only mode is called Anarchy had pits you with three other players to fight against hordes of enemies — not exactly the most original mode, but it’s better than nothing.
Bulletstorm is a fun game, despite a tame campaign, crass acting and dialogue, and limited multiplayer. It has great visuals and fast paced, over the top gameplay will satisfy those FPS gamers who are out to just have some fun, blow stuff up and kill lots of enemies.
The Good:
Fast paced gameplay
Great visuals
Lots of variety in the missions
Fun ways of killing enemies
The Bad:
Linear campaign
Flat characters
Lame jokes and dialogue
Multiplayer is limited and buggy
Overall score: 7/10
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