The typical shooter palette has been jolted from fashionable slate grey to 'puked a rainbow'. Sifting through the game's recorded skillshots turned me into a macabre Pokémon master, not resting until I'd collected all the heinous ways I could possibly end a life.īulletstorm's world is hyper-real, like you've come home to find your little brother has fiddled with the contrast settings on all your wars. I found myself flipping between sidearms at each checkpoint – not because I'd run out of ammo, but because my brain had been cycling through new means of murder I was keen to try. Or deliberately aim wide of your target, sending one grenade into a solid object as the other briefly becomes a horrible strimmer, tearing heads and rending flesh in a small arc.Įach weapon has a nasty application. Wrap the bolas around an enemy and it'll immobilise them on the spot, letting you kick them into their friends and press the detonator. There's the gun that fires two grenades attached by a chain. Those unlocks do standard things – such as increase the ammunition capacity for the Peacemaker Carbine – but they also allow access to a more unhinged arsenal. The compunction to kill well is magnified by the practical application of skillshot points: they go toward all of Bulletstorm's unlocks. It reduces the opportunity for clever leash-play and turns fights into drudgery. They're much stupider and easier to off than their still-human compatriots, running directly at you instead of taking cover. The formula only breaks down later in the game, when the plot introduces feral mutants as the main enemy. It gave me a desire to kill creatively, and a compulsion to get to the next fight, the next theatre of pain. That last method made me feel infinitely bigger, cleverer and filthier than the first. Five gangsters, flicked into the sky by the leash's alternate fire mode and subsequently shot by a supercharged shotgun blast that reduces their scarred forms to glowing red skeletons and a pouchfull of ash, earns you more points than you can count and so many letters on the screen that you can't see what to shoot next. A lassoed then-kicked-into-the-spines-of-a-cactus gangster earns you the PRICKED skill-shot and 500 points. A kicked-then-shot gangster gives you 250 points, and the words 'BULLET KICK' in bold yellow letters on your screen. Did I mention I was standing at the edge of a cliff? I didn't tell him, either.Ī shot gangster gives you ten points. At the last second, before his leaking body crumpled into my own, I'd stand aside and laugh as he sailed off the lip of a cliff. I'd let him stand up, shake himself off, then snatch him again. A few shells in the scrotum, and back he'd go, booted in the direction he'd just come by my big shoe. A moment of panic on his stupid face, and he'd be floating in my direction, legs akimbo. I'd pick my victim and reach across the space between us with a line of blue energy. I quickly slipped into a routine of applied sadism. Both methods lead to a few glorious seconds of slow-motion, your chosen target drifting serenely through the air, their vital and squishy bits open to any punishment you fancy unloading. Apply your foot to the face of a foe and they'll fly away. Fire the leash at an enemy and you'll grab them and yank them toward you. The farting fat man isn't Bulletstorm's only trump: in addition to a gun, you have an electric leash, and a big fucking boot. But you should know that you're playing it wrong. Play the game as you're conditioned to play shooters – run to cover and pop your targets with concentrated gunfire – and Bulletstorm is an incredibly dull game. Bulletstorm's standard rifle – the jokingly named Peacemaker Carbine – is a bullethose that takes a good few seconds to wipe the head from even the flimsiest foe. On my first attempt, I had a gun, I pointed it at the stream of mutants who wanted to murder my space-hero, and I pressed the trigger until they fell down. But 'anarchy' is a misnomer: despite the blood and guts and arses, both the cooperative-only multiplayer mode and ten hour singleplayer campaign demand restraint and discipline unheard-of in other FPS games.īulletstorm is maliciously playful, but it takes a while for your brain to accept that. As a unit, we've kicked, shot, and giant-electric-lassoed hundreds of disfigured, disgusting gangsters in Anarchy mode. We've finished wave 20 of Bulletstorm's cooperative multiplayer mode and made a man shit himself to death.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |