Bulletstorm – Kill With Skill

Bulletstorm offers something that there are very few games for. In a sense though, it does remain the first of its kind. While games have awarded players for creative or inventive kills before, usually in the form of some points, trophies or other little things, this is the first main stream game to really take the idea of creative killing and give you this much incentive and a great number of rewards for it. The main character is the one who opens up the demo to you. This foul-mouthed man narrates and milks out the demo, explaining just what is expected of you in the game. He describes the demo as “just a nugget of the awesome that is Bulletstorm”. From what I have seen, there may be some truth to that.

In Bulletstorm you play as the Mercenary Grayson Hunt. While the story is kept well under-wraps the basics of it have been released. You and Ishi Sato, a cyborg, have defected from your Mercenary company and have been banished to a planet for this. Here, you're fighting for your life against mutants of great variety and other humans. Your weapons all have charge shots (even the “little” pistol) and these give access to completely new skill shots and options for kills. Even in the demo, you can manage to get close to 15, maybe, different skill shots. All it takes is some out-of-the-box thinking and this game encourages it. The game promises to be quite over-the-top and its been quite a while since we had something like this grace the market.

When you grab someone with your whip or introduce them to your boot, they slow down. While it has the advantage of removing an opponent briefly that is not the real purpose. In the air, you can shoot whatever you want at them and have the time to prepare it. The controls for Bulletstorm are, overall, simpler than you'd expect for such a deep system. You run by default, choose your weapon using the d-pad fire with right trigger etc. Still, by stringing all those different basics together you can see the sheer variety that is open to you for this game. The easier controls will help a lot. Anyone who has been playing FPS games will know the basics well and be able to just pick it up and start showing off what insane stunts they can made happen.

This is going to be a game where you shouldn't expect too much in terms of the story. Think of it like a good B-movie, something that you can enjoy for reasons other than being a masterpiece. While it will definitely have its moments, it looks to take things over the top and do so completely. From what the demo alone shows, there is going to be blood splattering from you and on you as you play through that game. Expect a lot of swearing, more violence than traditionally expected and something for everyone who ever wanted to put their boot into a mutant's backside them explode them with a grenade bola! This is a promising game so far and its simply a question of how you want to really slaughter your enemies.