Bulletstorm

 

Today, I’m going to give my impressions of Gears Of….oh sorry, Bulletstorm. The first thing you will notice when you start playing is the control mechanics. They are very similar to Gears Of War. But that’s a good thing, it’s easy to pick up and play even for those who are novices, I played with a few. The basic idea of the control scheme is different in adding some interesting features. One of which is the Leash which is use to grab enemies or objects and to interact with drop pods. Using the leash you can pull, snag, whip an enemy around and it some scenarios you can even rip your enemies head clean off. The charge shot is nice as well. Basically you charge up your shot with one of the guns and it allows you to get some wicked kills. My favorite charge shot is with sniper rifle, called the headhunter. A normal shot with his awesome gun allows you to control a bullet and direct into your enemy, who is going to try and avoid it. The charged shot adds an explosive detonation to it. You can blow it up before it reaches your original target if need be. There are several weapons available but you can only assign three plus your leash at a time.

Just what is this game all about anyway? It’s a story of retribution set in a futuristic space era that uses pieces of real American history of the civil war to add some levity. It also uses some very heavy and harsh language. Luckily we can turn that off in the options, though be warned it does not eliminate all the foul language. I don’t want to give away any spoilers in the story, so I will stop there.

The single player campaign is nice and long. I did play through it in one day, but I started at noon and finished around 9:30pm. That was nice. It has a nice balance of being fun to play and challenging. For seasoned first person shooter gamers like myself, I recommend playing on the harder difficulties. Normal is a good challenge for the occasional gamer and easy for the beginner. But the fun part that sets this game apart is the scoring system. Each weapon has numerous skill shots that you earn points with. So the better your kill, the more points you earn. The more skill points you earn- the quicker you can spend those points to upgrade your guns and buy ammo.

Another single player option is Echoes. With Echoes you play through different sections of the campaign and try to get the highest score. It features a leader board so you can see how you stack against your friends. This is indeed fun and challenging. But what there’s more!

Multiplayer is unique.It’s called Anarchy. You play online with a team of four trying to reach the score needed to advance from wave to wave. This is close to Nazi Zombies from call of duty, in that between each round you can spend your skill points to buy weapons, ammo and upgrades. Very challenging. The reason is that you must work as a team to perform skill shots together to get the scores needed. Such as one person kicking an enemy and the other shooting the enemy as he flies back is a Team Bullet Kick. It also has a bit of Horde feeling to it as well. More Gears? lol

Was it worth the bounty? Yes, this game is worth the $59 price tag. You’ll have laughs and loads of fun blowing up enemies and whipping them around. This has such a strong competitive feel that I didn’t want to stop playing. The graphics are strong and look great. The gameplay mechanics are spot on. Even the music score feels right. Fun challenging and worthwhile gameplay makes this a game I’ll keep playing for a while.

A few issues I found were minor, a couple small glitches that didn’t really effect my game play- but noticeable. And remember the objectives, if it tells you to press the left trigger-do it quick for some quick skill points. And a good challenge is the skill shot that requires you to shoot an enemy in the balls with the headhunter to kill him. This was a great buy for me, but luckily I got a good deal. And I believe some retailers have this down to around $39 if your willing to search. Maybe I’ll see you online.