With all the complaints from non-gamer critics before the game arrived on shelves, my interest was only increased in the new shooter that gives you extra points for shooting a target in the balls BEFORE killing them. Sure, I’d had my fill of first person shooters for the most part – as have many folks I know. Developers need to add something special to games, a new hook beyond just seeing how many targets you can splatter – that’s been done to death (pun intended).
With Bulletstorm, you’re a mercenary that ends up on a nearly abandoned planet which once hosted a modern civilization. Everything left behind wants to kill you, from soldiers on the spacecraft you shot down (invariably landing you on this planet in the first place) to the mutant and alien residents who have various ways (beyond just shooting at you) of killing you. At its heart its a typical first person shooter with very little room for exploration. Bulletstorm makes up for that by adding hillarious dialogue, wonderfully tasteless kill shots, weapons that not only shoot, but explode, burn, decapitate, and hurtle your enemies off into the nearest object while spinning like a top, and plenty of challenging gameplay.
My favorite weapons are the leash (allowing you to latch on to most enemies and rip them towards you in bullet time), and the drill gun which launches a massive drill bit at the enemy that sends them careening out of control and should they get impaled on something – spins their body into oblivion. The machine gun is your main weapon, its fairly accurate but pretty boring. Also of note are the sniper rifle (which allows you to aim the bullet in the last 20 yards of the shot), pistol (with exploding flairgun attachment), flail gun (launches a pair of grenades joined by a chain at enemies), exploding ball launcher (lobs a massive grenade out that can bounce around or detonate… boring IMHO), and a 4 barrel shotgun that blows bad guys in half at close range.
I’ve beaten it twice so far, likely to go back and beat it again this week. It’s not a terribly long game, you could probably beat it in 1 or two evenings, but every time I go back I try to find new ways to take out the bad guys, unlock new kill shots, or if I’m so inclined, just leash as many bad guys into cactii and exposed rebar for the ‘voodoo doll’ bonus. Definitely tons of replay value here, worth every penny.
