It’s not too hard to see why Bulletstorm is regarded as a minor cult classic. On the one hand, it’s yet another brown-and-grey shooter from an era that was rife with them. On the other hand, it’s extremely competent and packs just enough charming flourishes to set it apart. It underperformed at launch but later gained a reputation as a solid shooter via word of mouth.

While its story won’t win any awards, Bulletstorm does offer up generous helpings of plot and worldbuilding. You take control of down-on-his-luck mercenary, Grayson Hunt, and go on a mission that’s part revenge against an evil warlord, part escape from a collapsing planet. Accompanying you are loyal sidekick Ishi and later a third party member. While your pals do provide some extra firepower, they primarily exist to deliver banter and keep the story moving forward. Thankfully they can’t die and thus require no babysitting.

The game feels like a first-person take on Gears of War, with the biggest twist coming in the form of skillshots and skillpoints. By disposing of enemies with special trick shots you can earn points that let you upgrade your weapons and purchase ammunition. Unfortunately, it’s a clever idea that never reaches its full potential, because skillpoints are too easy to earn and there aren’t enough interesting ways to spend them. Skillshots usually involve tossing enemies into hazards like electricity and thorns, or just straight up shooting them in their ahem manly parts. There are many variations on these concepts, with each weapon having its own unique skillshots, but they don’t feel different enough to meaningfully change the gameplay. Likewise, skillpoints don’t let you upgrade your weapons in any interesting ways, so most of your points will be spent increasing your ammo reserves and buying spare bullets. For a concept with so much potential, the execution fails to impress.

What the game absolutely nails, though, are the pacing and sense of scale. It flows almost like a light-gun shooter, as you run from area to area and blast through hordes of bad dudes. The gunplay is fast, ammo is abundant, and the set pieces are epic. You venture through huge caverns, run-down future cities, and mil-sim spaceships, and no two scenes feel alike. While the game is basically a corridor shooter, the massive backdrops ensure it never feels tiny or cramped. By limiting the space of play, the developers are conversely able to create environments that, in some ways, feel more immense than the open worlds that have been in vogue for the last decade plus.

While it didn’t push the first-person shooter genre forward as it undoubtedly hoped to, Bulletstorm is still a solid early ‘10s shooter with a fun campaign and high production values. If you’re looking for a palate cleanser to play between bigger games, you could do a lot worse.

FPS divertido na maior parte do tempo, da uma cansadinha perto do fim, mas o jogo é curtinho (tem umas 6 horas de gameplay).

A mecânica do chicote pra puxar inimigos e objetos, somando o fato de vc poder chutar os inimigos nas coisas é bem legal.

Pena que a luta final é um quick time event e o game deixa uma brecha pra continuação que acho que nunca vai rolar.

Vale a pena pegar em uma promoção.

I want a sequel to Bulletstorm so fucking bad.

I loved this game as a kid back on 360 and played the shit out of it there, playing it again almost 10 years later and I love it even more than I did back then.

Skillshots are genuinely one of the coolest mechanics I've ever seen in a game, finding creative ways to take down enemies and getting rewarded for it is so fun and all the weapons in the game are all so unique and a joy to use.

The game art style wise still holds up very well and all the areas look great, especially on an OLED screen from my Steam Deck

The writing is ridiculous and over the top, usually I'd find it pretty cringe but I think it matches the tone of this game well enough to where I didn't really mind it much, it is also genuinely funny at points too.

This game was just so fucking fun. It is Insanely underrated.

Un sucesor espiritual de Duke Nukem que resulta atractivo en la primera hora, y luego va en caída libre.

Todo alrededor del argumento es bastante ridículo, predeciblemente anticuado y francamente insoportable.

A nivel mecánico, las intenciones son evidentes y, en cierto punto, interesantes; sin embargo, pierde el encanto rápidamente, y los QTE no ayudan para nada.

One of my Favorite FPSs originally from 7th gen still holds up replaying it again for the most part. The gameplay is creative with the skillshot system and being able to use different combos with the leash amongst your arsenal of weapons that all have alternate charge firing modes unique to each and every single one of em to stand each other apart. While some wont enjoy it, The humor/dialogue is my kind of humor, so that's a bonus.

Only things holding it back is trends of shooters at the time, QTEs (including the final "boss"), a weapon limit for this kind of shooter (which is fixed with the overkill mode but you'd have to beat it first), Regenerating health which also screws with the flow of the combat, especially in the earlier parts of the campaign.

These are trends that they've took the piss out of in their promotional material in its 2011 original release with modern military shooters at the time, only to suffer the same problems that are mainly magnified because of how good the gameplay is with its skillshot/leash mechanics. Reminds me when Duke Nukem infamously took the piss out of Halos "power armor" only to suffer the same fate in DNF.

Speaking of which, since gearbox published this remaster, the only other thing thats advertised in this DLC, the Duke's World Tour, is half-assed to say the least. its enjoyable hearing duke again and him being plopped into someone else's story is funny, but its not worth the extra $5 as standalone DLC for a $40 game. I luckily got both in a bundle for $3. Some cutscenes are off with him not really lip syncing with grays (original protagonist) animations, due to them (most likely) plopped dukes 2011 DNF model into the game. Apparently it was worse before and had been fixed since then but somehow that inadvertently caused a bug that i also encountered on the PS4 version where gray couldn't speak in one of the final cutscenes which made it awkward.

Also, its a shame seeing no one playing the coop anarchy mode and the matchmaking is completely FUBAR, since it was a fun horde mode which relies on you and your squads skillshots than solely just your kills. While you can play it solo, its recommended to do two or more players so you can pull off some skillshots you cant really pull off otherwise.

Then there's Echoes mode which is basically short campaign sections of just straight up combat with a score limit/ranking with 3 stars, if you didnt wanna be bothered with the cutscenes or dialogue, and the more skillshots you pull off, the higher your score/more stars you earn, the higher you'll get up on the leaderboards. Fun for a little extra hrs on the game but its nothing to come back towards once you beat all of the echo levels with max stars.

To sum it up or TL;DR: I definitely recommend giving this a try on sale if you just wanna try the campaign and Echoes mode, Don't get the Duke DLC separately for $5, and if you wanna try anarchy mode you have to be willing to search for people online to play in a private match or solo it, otherwise you'll be stuck waiting for hours.

The characters are pretty bad and the story is nothing but the gameplay is some of my favorite shooter gameplay out there. The basic gunplay itself is really fun but the skillshot system is incredible. Having a gameplay reason to play creatively instead of just walking forward and shooting dudes is so great and some of the skillshots are really creative. All of the weapons feel great and the combo of the kick and leash give you some fun options in combat. The full clip edition looks great too it’s kinda insane how good the environments and weapons actually look in this version, the characters still look and animate really bad though.

Someone needs to invent a genre for this type of game like "spectacle shooter" can we get that please the Deus Ex fans got this dumb "imsim" genre let us have spectacle shooter

Anyways game is incredibly fun, well paced, just the right length. Also gorgeous, not just a typical brown/beige 7th-gen typical shooter fare, lot of vivid colours and pretty vistas. The character models look like muppets with tissues stuffed in their mouths though.
Some corny dialogue and a predictable story but thanks to the self-aware tone the game gets away with it.

Fairly fun for what it is. A short, arcade-style shooter with some really fun mechanics and weapons to mess around with, but there are a few glaring issues with the game.

While I eventually got used to there not being any jump button, I found some of the mechanics of the game to feel rather useless, primarily in some of the weapons available to use that are frankly gimmick weapons when compared to more useful tools. I only really stuck to around five weapons I used on repeat, only bringing out other weapons if I needed a quick switch to a new gun on the fly.

I also found the story to be total hot garbage, which wasn't a big surprise if I'm to be honest. While the gameplay remains mostly a great time (it kinda peters out in the end but it thankfully ends before things get too repetitive), the story is a jumbled assortment of stale cliches helmed by stereotypical characters. The story isn't also helped by the severe amount of racist and sexist dialog both our protagonist and antagonist characters spout. More than anything else, Bulletstorm comes off as being edgy for the sake of being edgy, than telling any sort of actual coherent narrative. The fact that the story ends on a major cliffhanger that'll seemingly never be resolved also bites.

I picked this up on a Steam sale where it was like four or five bucks, and that's what I honestly feel it's worth. A fun little way to kill some time in the gameplay department, but it certainly isn't anything special like how it wants you to think it is. I'll certainly do another run of the game in the future with the Duke Nukem DLC when the time comes to play that.

Playtime: 6 Hours
Score: 6/10

I played this game at a friends house back when it originally came out and thought it was awesome looking. A first person Gears of War with how the character models and guns looked. Playing it now fully on PC however was a very mixed experience.

To start with what I did like, first off the voice acting is top notch with Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale voicing the lead characters. Steven Blum especially was my favorite as the main character Grasyon. The man was born to play grizzled soldier types. The graphics look very good with its Gears of War like aesthetic, though this "remastered" edition barely looks better then the original port. The game has aged well though with its art style. The general combat and gameplay is super fun with all the cool weapons you can use and how you can use the environment to kill your enemies. Its all very well done. Plus there's the Skillshot system that rewards you with points the more creative you get with how you dispatch enemies.

The best part of the game is definitely the story and writing as it really was engaging and I wanted to see where it all ended up. Though I did start to get bored of all the dick jokes after a while. The game does end on a cliffhanger though, which I did know going in beforehand, but since there doesn't seem like there will ever be a sequel to this, it overall left me feeling very unsatisfied especially since the game is rather short and I only cared about the campaign really. Stick around till the end of the credits as there is a post credit scene, or don't since there's no sequel?

To start with my negatives from the gameplay side which is a lot. Firstly, was the overuse of QTEs and button prompts which never ceased to be annoying. This was the time where developers were really pushing these mechanics in games, and I have never been a fan of it. You can't jump in the game, and have to do a bottom prompt to vault over things which is fine, but you can't go 10 steps in levels without running into one of these things which gets tedious. And things like climbing across rails is also button prompts you have to press throughout you climbing across rather then you just grabbing on and moving naturally. This also comes into the final boss fight which is also a QTE segment which is really bad since they did such a good job building up the villain in the story, I wanted to blast his head off, but I can't even do that without the game holding my hand and refusing to let go.

The skillshot system was also disappointing in that its very limited in what you can spend points on. You can increase how much ammo you can carry and unlock an alternate firing mode for the each of the weapons and thats it. It would have been cool if you could upgrade damage, reload speed, accuracy etc.. You don't need full weapon customization, but at least being able to upgrade them more would have been cool. The enemies are also really annoying in this game in how there are multiple enemy types that will run right up to you, which means you need to weapons like the shotgun always equipped. You can kick enemies, but its only going to knock them back unless you kick them into hazards like spikes or electrical currents. The enemies also are complete bullet sponges even on the easier difficulties. At one point there was a one shotgun enemy I was fighting and it took 4 or 5 blasts from my own shotgun at close range to kill him which was just terrible. Eventually towards the end I just spammed the leashes ultimate ability that would kill multiple enemies at once because I just didn't want to deal with them. The leash is cool weapon in that you can pull enemies towards you but later they introduce enemies that can both dodge the leash and the auto-seeking sniper rifle rounds? Okay bro.

You can also only carry 3 weapons which sucks and annoyingly, when your at a drop kit that you use to upgrade weapons and refill your ammo, if you refill for a gun you don't have equipped it will automatically equip that weapon which was very annoying. You can unlock the ability to carry all weapons in new game plus mode, but that's obviously only after you beat the main campaign. You can replay to get any killshot challenges you missed the first time and when you do for each weapon you unlock infinite ammo which is cool. The only problem with this is your constantly being attacked by multiple enemies at once and it can be a bit hard to spend time trying to perform a specific kill when you got 10 guys all attacking you at once. Another missed opportunity was co-op which would have been perfect for this game, especially since throughout the campaign you are basically always accompanied by an NPC. It would made replaying the game a lot more fun.

Lastly, this is a small thing, but whenever character sprints the camera shakes which I guess is done to be more realistic, but this at times gave me motion sickness. There's no option to turn this off or to keep the camera stable when sprinting which I was not a fan of.

Overall the game is decent but some of the gameplay design decisions the devs made, make it age badly compared to things like the story and graphics being top notch. I'd recommend it for the story, but with the cliffhanger ending, and there being no sequel, it makes me want to say skip it.

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

Unexpected gem. At first though, I was really not into it. I knew the marketing around this game being retro was misleading, but I still didn't expect that to imply I'd have to go through a dragged out tutorialized chapter full of QTEs and story beats that I doubt anyone cares for, with some of that carrying over to the rest. But due to my bestie's recommendation and assurance that it gets better, I kept going.

Once that's over you'll find the game still isn't very retro, it doesn't play like any older FPS I can think of, you sprint, reload and aim down sights. Only thing connecting this to the old times is an arcade like scoring system.

This however turns out to be a fairly unique game on its own, the scoring system is called skillshots and rewards you with points for meeting different criteria while killing enemies, doing a new skillshot granting you bonus points. This ends up encouraging you to vary up your playstyle a bit, and combined with the quick kicks and leashing, essentially a grappling hook for reeling enemies in, and the different guns all having different skillshots, combat encounters pick up the pace really quickly.

Another aspect of this game's balancing is the dropkits, you won't get too much ammo from dead enemies or pickups so you will need to rack up points both to upgrade your guns and to keep your ammo up when running low unless you're super efficient. Near the end of the game you'll probably be able to afford whatever you need, but it kept me on my toes a fair bit while building up to it as I was playing on hard difficulty.

Presentationwise, this game is surprisingly good looking. You mostly fight nasty enemies that are either mutated freaks or humans gone insane, but you also get to see really nice views of cool looking deserts, caves, ran down cities, etc. And what you see up in your face is often pretty detailed. The guns are well designed, and the music while nothing especial fits the game.

Storywise, this is just dumb. Typical revenge story with some basic character dynamics, with characters overtly swearing like this was written by an edgy teenager, making serious moments kinda hard to take seriously as overall the game isn't really going there. However this is where I should mention that I played this with the Duke Nukem Tour DLC on, and let me tell you, it makes up for any shortcoming in the story. Yes, he replaces the main character in an awkward way and nobody else re-recorded their lines to call him Duke instead of Gray, but even so this feels like such an appropiate environment to throw Duke in and being able to listen to a surprisingly good rendition of him (So, not DNF) made up for the parts of the game that annoyed me, especially the slow start.

This is overall a game that isn't quite like anything else I know of and I'm surprised that the same studio that made Painkiller, a game with some of the most average FPS gameplay I've touched, managed to create this. It is very enjoyable once you get past the first hurdle and somehow a forced inclusion of Duke Nukem just elevates it more. I recommend it to anyone that enjoys a fast action shooter. Really wish a sequel or spiritual successor happens, I want more like this, but seeing the studio's output I'm not getting my hopes up from their part.

I've heard of Bulletstorm long time ago but thanks to PSN, I decided to play it just couple of days ago.

Bulletstorm is nothing but a dumb fun action shooter with good mechanics. I love it.

The primary mechanic in this game is to make your enemies in float in the air slow motion. You can do it in multiple ways: by kicking them, sliding through them or pulling them with your leash.

That's what makes the combat great. You can mix in your slides, kicks and leash and destroy your enemies either with your weapons or the enviroment. My favorite combo was pulling an enemy, sticking a bomb to him, kicking him back to his group and detonating the bomb for the big group kill.

The game also incentivizes you to go for these big comboes and enviromental kills by giving you extra credits when you pull them off. You use these credits to upgrade your weapons and buy extra ammo. If you play the game like COD, you're not gonna earn shit. That's how you make a compelling system. I wish there were more variety in upgrades.

What about the story, dialogue, characters, atmosphere and all that jazz? You'll forget everything about them right after you finish the game. There is really nothing to it. I'm personally not a story guy in action games but I think if Bulletstorm had quality characters and dialogues like Uncharted, it could have been a classic hit. The foundation is superb but they didn't polish the rest of it.

Anyway, it's a badass game with fun mechanics. Action fans should check it out.

For whatever reason, the game that rewarded me for choking people with a grenade bouquet, killing seven people, and getting bonuses called "Gang bang" and "Assstruction" thought it was being clever preaching to me that gratuitous violence in media is bad to a point where it makes Spec Ops: The Line looking at the character and saying "You're a murderer" look subtle in comparison.

Not a bad game, but holy shit, this is NOT how you make a thoughtful experience, especially when I counted 13 homophobic jokes in the first four chapters before giving up because I felt like I'd have a hernia if I kept it up.

Rating: C
Genre(s): FPS