Before I get into the combat I want to cover off a few things. The graphics a lush and well executed the pallet is VERY adventurous for a FPS these days. I mean there are a couple grey and brown levels but once you hit the resort its all whites and creams and neon lights with lovely sunsets. The levels are well design and very playable and despite the massive damage you can see that this was a lovely place to holiday before all the face eating started. The inhabitants are also well designed and animated and fit right in. The voice acting is great, but with good voice actors and a script that doesn’t let them down it’s to be expected. The ambience and the sound effects also work well with the rest of the package rounding this out as a well polished, well executed game.

Finally! ‘Whip, Kick, Boom’ sums up what BulletStorm really is about, its about getting your murder on and in a real Hollywood++ kind of way. First off you got a Kick, yeah yeah Duke Nukem had a kick back in the 90’s but he never had gravity boots that slows the enemy down for a few moments leaving them at your mercy and allowing so of the mechanics to work. It is odd however that you don’t use your gravity boots for walking on walls any more. Next up is the leash; the leash is a symbiotic bit of technology that ‘talks’ to its user and messes with their sense allowing the HUD to be something that is actually experienced by your character. The leash has 2 basic functions, pulling stuff and thumping stuff which sends enemies up in the air or slamming into the ground). As with your boots the leash also has a slow down effect.

Now although you can kill enemies by kicking or thumping them to death you also have your guns and the environment to deal swift justice. A quick kick into a cactus or exposed rebar will send off an enemy as well. Explosive barrels, man-eating plants, electricity, low ceilings there are a lot of dangers in the world and you can exploit them all. Your guns are also a grab bag of death. Each of the guns has a primary attack and a charged attack. You got your usual suspects in the assault rifle, a pistol, sniper rifle and 4 barrel shotgun, Hehe yeah 4 barrels, but it gets more extreme. You got a bouncing ball mine gun, a gun that shoots 2 grenades linked with a chain and a ‘The Penetrator’ which shoots drill bits, really big drill bits. Charged shots are special rounds which can dissolve enemies, set them on fire, let you rag doll them into their mates before exploding them or in general cause even more death and mayhem.

All in all there are 131 different things you can do other than just sooting enemies to death. These skill shots can be stacked for greater bonuses meaning if you want more points to upgrade you guns or buy ammo you have to start getting creative and that’s where this game gets fun. Sandbox death is really to aim of BulletStorm, I have run through a lot of the campaign levels to pick up loose achievements and each time I used different weapons, different tactics and had a great time often playing on after I got the achievement, which is an unusual feeling for me. Speaking of replaying levels, Echo mode lets you play small sections of levels aiming for the highest score on the Leader boards. Its quite fun though my best ranking is in the low 5,000 but in my defence I was trying to just get the 3 stars for the achievement =D

There are a lot of sad people out there complaining that there is no VS multiplayer in BulletStorm. I say Good Riddance, it wouldn’t have worked well unless the ruined the whip, kick gravity effect. What could have worked would have been a co-op campaign multiplayer kind of like Left 4 Dead. You do get Anarchy mode. A 20 round horde arena. Its a lot of fun, as horde modes tend to be, a big difference with Anarchy is that if you want to earn enough points to proceed your going to have to work as a team and it takes some pretty hard co-ordination to get it right as killing a single enemy as a team is unheard of in today’s FPS’s.

There are some downsides to this game. The friendly AI gets in the way and you don’t even need their help, the levels are pretty linear and you will occasionally get hooked on terrain but it’s forgivable because the game is about the spectacle. I would highly recommend this to those with a penchant for ultra violence. This game is definitely a candidate for game of the year.

BulletStorm crept up on me. I didn’t pay much attention to the pre release build up, I didn’t download the demo. The simple fact is I knew very little about this game until a couple days before release when a friend sent a link to the ‘Whip, Kick, Boom’ trailer and that when my eyes went all glazed and I fell in love. Fresh IP is a rarity these days and what the trailer promised got me quite excited.

BulletStorm is a story about revenge. After being betrayed by their General, Dead Echo goes rogue and become space pirates. 10 years later in an Alcohol fuel attack on the General star ship which leaves both ships crashing into a nearby resort planet… filled with violent criminals and mutated freaks. Without giving to much away this game has a reasonable story and the script had my laughing pretty hard at some points, be warned though, its not cerebral humour. To be honest though the story isn’t what BulletStorm is about, Bullet storm is about killing things. Not so much about now they are dead, more about how they are dead. 

Before I get into the combat I want to cover off a few things. The graphics a lush and well executed the pallet is VERY adventurous for a FPS these days. I mean there are a couple grey and brown levels but once you hit the resort its all whites and creams and neon lights with lovely sunsets. The levels are well design and very playable and despite the massive damage you can see that this was a lovely place to holiday before all the face eating started. The inhabitants are also well designed and animated and fit right in. The voice acting is great, but with good voice actors and a script that doesn’t let them down it’s to be expected. The ambience and the sound effects also work well with the rest of the package rounding this out as a well polished, well executed game. Finally! ‘Whip, Kick, Boom’ sums up what BulletStorm really is about, its about getting your murder on and in a real Hollywood++ kind of way. First off you got a Kick, yeah yeah Duke Nukem had a kick back in the 90’s but he never had gravity boots that slows the enemy down for a few moments leaving them at your mercy and allowing so of the mechanics to work. It is odd however that you don’t use your gravity boots for walking on walls any more. Next up is the leash; the leash is a symbiotic bit of technology that ‘talks’ to its user and messes with their sense allowing the HUD to be something that is actually experienced by your character. The leash has 2 basic functions, pulling stuff and thumping stuff which sends enemies up in the air or slamming into the ground). As with your boots the leash also has a slow down effect. Now although you can kill enemies by kicking or thumping them to death you also have your guns and the environment to deal swift justice. A quick kick into a cactus or exposed rebar will send off an enemy as well. Explosive barrels, man-eating plants, electricity, low ceilings there are a lot of dangers in the world and you can exploit them all. Your guns are also a grab bag of death. Each of the guns has a primary attack and a charged attack. You got your usual suspects in the assault rifle, a pistol, sniper rifle and 4 barrel shotgun, Hehe yeah 4 barrels, but it gets more extreme. You got a bouncing ball mine gun, a gun that shoots 2 grenades linked with a chain and a ‘The Penetrator’ which shoots drill bits, really big drill bits. Charged shots are special rounds which can dissolve enemies, set them on fire, let you rag doll them into their mates before exploding them or in general cause even more death and mayhem. All in all there are 131 different things you can do other than just sooting enemies to death. These skill shots can be stacked for greater bonuses meaning if you want more points to upgrade you guns or buy ammo you have to start getting creative and that’s where this game gets fun. Sandbox death is really to aim of BulletStorm, I have run through a lot of the campaign levels to pick up loose achievements and each time I used different weapons, different tactics and had a great time often playing on after I got the achievement, which is an unusual feeling for me. Speaking of replaying levels, Echo mode lets you play small sections of levels aiming for the highest score on the Leader boards. Its quite fun though my best ranking is in the low 5,000 but in my defence I was trying to just get the 3 stars for the achievement =D There are a lot of sad people out there complaining that there is no VS multiplayer in BulletStorm. I say Good Riddance, it wouldn’t have worked well unless the ruined the whip, kick gravity effect. What could have worked would have been a co-op campaign multiplayer kind of like Left 4 Dead. You do get Anarchy mode. A 20 round horde arena. Its a lot of fun, as horde modes tend to be, a big difference with Anarchy is that if you want to earn enough points to proceed your going to have to work as a team and it takes some pretty hard co-ordination to get it right as killing a single enemy as a team is unheard of in today’s FPS’s.

There are some downsides to this game. The friendly AI gets in the way and you don’t even need their help, the levels are pretty linear and you will occasionally get hooked on terrain but it’s forgivable because the game is about the spectacle. I would highly recommend this to those with a penchant for ultra violence. This game is definitely a candidate for game of the year.