[mini] Bulletstorm: Fullclip Edition

Bulletstorm is a first-person shooter developed by People Can Fly (the same studio behind Painkiller) in collaboration with Epic Games. Published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Later remastered and re-released in 2017 by Gearbox Software under the title Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition which is the version played for this review.

/// Plot

Bad boy black ops soldier Grey turns into a space pirate and swears revenge after being tricked into killing civilians by a comically evil, space confederate General Serrano. Years pass and Grey crosses paths with Serrano's capital ship, the situation goes south, leading to an emergency crash landing on the planet below. His friend gets injured, turned into an unstable cyborg, and off they go to enact revenge on the General, and maybe find a way out of the planet.

It's a clichê fest and the game is aware of it. File it under Carmack's porno plot rule, expected story to be there but not the main draw. Also, the Fullclip Edition has a bug Gearbox never fixed that renders the protagonist mute on the single moment dialog matters to the plot, so a round of applause for Gearbox please.

However, the writing, itself is... bad. Well, to be fair, juvenile is the right word. It tries hard to be edgy, and gritty but sometimes funny but fails at it most of the time. It's a teenager's definition of what an adventure with "funny" war criminals would sound like. Gearbox only came into the picture in 2017 for the re-release, but every so often I would be reminded of Borderlands' writing style.

It fits the target audience and it's well within the edge lord trends of the time. On the other hand, the polish director Adrian Chmielarz later stated this was accidental and the result of the language barrier, as swearing in a foreign language didn't hold much weight to them. Only to realize how edgy it all sounded once the script got translated back to polish. It is not that great but is not that egregious either, nowhere near what Rogue Warrior did, and

/// Gameplay

The first hour or so of this game is the most miserably boring shit I've played in 2022. You know how in the 2010s every FPS tried to emulate the success of Call of Duty but took away all the wrong lessons from it in terms of design? Nonstop scripted sequences, QTEs out the ass, room breaches in slow motion, cramped levels with no flexibility to combat. I'm sure you know what I mean and can think of at least one other title that made the same mistakes *wink *wink.

But if you survived the hour-long tutorial hell, congratulations you get a reward: Bulletstorm gets good. Surprisingly so. All the previous issues get reduced dramatically, improving the pace significantly, save from QTEs those stick around. It genuinely feels like the game was trying to bait players into thinking it's similar to Call of Duty for just enough time to maybe hook them on the real gameplay loop that's about to start.

They remove the metaphorical leash from your neck and hand it to you as an in-game weapon. The Leash is an energy whip that enables displacing enemies, pulling and hanging them in the air in a bullet time effect. This buys you time to line up shots or a well-timed kick sending the target flying toward a wall of spikes, explosives, dangerous exposed machinery, or whatever else you can find. Just like a deadly game of pool.

 

Along with the leash, a scoring system is introduced, rewarding you for creative kills. Points can be used to purchase alternate fire modes and ammo for your guns. It's all very simplistic but surprisingly satisfying. Blasting enemies and racking up points while a KATCHING! sound effect plays is just dopamine shots directly into my hypothalamus.

Bulletstorm has some interesting environments, set in an abandoned Resort Planet, standard industrial locations, gorgeous vistas, hotels, bars, miniature cityscape, all tied to the planet tourism attraction theme. In terms of style, take the gears of war visual design language and put a stylized spin on it.

Levels are linear but combat arenas give you a few options to handle encounters and maybe get some extra points while at it. As for the campaign itself, it's a standard modern shooter deal, divided into 7 acts, and can be completed in about 6 hours.

 

Aside from collectibles, it's a one-and-done kind of game, but if you feel like replaying it, the Overkill Mode act as a sort of New Game Plus: With infinite ammo and all guns unlocked from the start. And if that's not enough there's also Echoes Mode: To replay a handful of combat encounters from the campaign in a score attack scenario with all the fat cut out, so no cutscenes or dialog (thank god).

/// Closing thoughts

It has its shortcomings, the story is dogshit sure, but when measured against other COD killers of the time Bulletstorm is far more creative and interesting. It's a unique curiosity, and the gameplay is decently fun and well worth a shot, especially if you are into oddities or People Can Fly history as a studio.