Bulletstorm

[Fiach]

Sorry for two posts, but after I type for awhie, the type box goes crazy and starts jumping back, so I cant easily check what i type.

The weapons are good, Flail chucks a string of grenades, machine gun does what its supposed to do, Sniper shoots  guide-able bullets (like Clive Barkers Jericho), but you can only carry three it seems.

The machine gun is only useful if you want to stitch an enemy after you kick them, its useless as a standard FPS assualt rifle, enemies are bullet soaks, unless you kick them into something.

You have to buy ammo, WTF were they thinking????? It really sucks, I can understand that the devs want you to use environment kills, but to me that just limits your experience, I hate it. I want to shoot stuff and have the environment kills as a chocolate sauce on the pudding, apparently the devs disagree.

The env kills can get you killed, you are trying to kill an enemy in an interesting way and you die, cos you are dicking around too much to get the right angle to kick an enemy into an electricity point, you get killed. So after a few (long) reloads, you play a mix of standard FPS and then some Bulletstorm stylee.

The gfx kinda suck,there are some interesting vistas that you can look at in the distance, but the area that you can interact with is not great looking, yes its current gen, but the worst of the real current gen games.

The leash is pretty cool. but its first upgrade Thumper, while pretty awesome, costs you 500 points to use, so that kinda adds some suckage to the skill.

[Fiach]

OK, post three for the above reasons :)

I'm glad I have the game, its a good FPS, the dialogue is witty and the characters are pretty cool, the guns are well thought out (People can Fly always have interesting weapons, check out Painkiller, it was way ahead of its time), the story is pretty good for a FPS, the voice acting is kinda sucky tbh.

Geting skill points is pretty easy, you will never have to worry about  getting enough points for an upgrade, but while its not expensve, buying ammo in a FPS really blows.

All in all, if you have been interested at all in this game, you will not be disappointed with the finished product, on saying that, looking at its main contributors, I would prefer to play Gears of War and Painkiller. The game is interesting, but when you consider the people behind it, it should have been so much better. Its short, but Echoes makes up for that, where you can play each chapter and revel in new types of skillshots as you get better at what the game really wants you todo :)

[mmosu]

Nice review Fiach - you made the decision for me  :-X

My brother in law has Bulletstorm on Xbox - I'll play it next time I'm over there  :-D

[Art Blade]

I might get it after March 10 (my matey is on holiday) :)

[Fiach]

Some interesting figures.

360 version sold 5:1 vs PS3, no doubt due to the inclusion of the Gears of War beta code, included with the 360 version.

But the sales figures....... 300k for the 360 version and only 60K for the PS3 version.

This game would have bombed only for the GoW betas inclusion with the 360 version, which is a shame, because it deserved to sell alot more on its own merit.

At least due to its success, hopefully the planned series will continue, unless they look at the PS3 figures and think that people aren't really interested in the IP itself, causing the devs to think again about the feasibility of sequels and just release DLC.

[deadman1]

Some interesting figures.

360 version sold 5:1 vs PS3, no doubt due to the inclusion of the Gears of War beta code, included with the 360 version.

But the sales figures....... 300k for the 360 version and only 60K for the PS3 version.

This game would have bombed only for the GoW betas inclusion with the 360 version, which is a shame, because it deserved to sell alot more on its own merit.

At least due to its success, hopefully the planned series will continue, unless they look at the PS3 figures and think that people aren't really interested in the IP itself, causing the devs to think again about the feasibility of sequels and just release DLC.

Sony are having a legal dispute with another company right now and all their machine´s have been siezed by the european customs. I think that might have something to do with it. Nobody wants to buy a new console that might be discontinued and therefore they´re not buying the games for it either.

[Fiach]

Thats interesting Deadman, have you any links I could check out?

On saying that, it wouldnt put me off buying ps3 games/console, Sony are a huge company, so either they will win or settle financially in some way. :)

[deadman1]

Thats interesting Deadman, have you any links I could check out?

On saying that, it wouldnt put me off buying ps3 games/console, Sony are a huge company, so either they will win or settle financially in some way. :)

The only links I have are in swedish unfortunately, but a quick google session gave me this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/8354639/PS3-supplies-threatened-by-customs-seizure.html

[Fiach]

Wow, that is kinda scary lol :)

Thanks for the link mate :)

[Art Blade]

received my special edition of Bulletstorm today.. going to install and play this weekend. :)

[Fiach]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it Art :)

[PZ]

Indeed - pics please  ;)

[Art Blade]

sure thing about telling you my thoughts on it while I don't know about screenshots.. I fear that it will be yet another game without that built-in ability to take any.

If so, dear FRAPS users, do you happen to know if someone (a friend of mine) could purchase it for me and somehow give me ownership? Like donate the program or buy a license for someone else? If so, a friend of mine would do it for me (I never do online business myself).

[Fiach]

I wouldn't sweat the pics, plenty online, plus gameplay videos, the game is pretty samey all the way through, and as its very much a corridor shooter, pics wont really do it justice.

Neither do gameplay videos, truth be told, its a game that has to be played to be appreciated. :)

[deadman1]

sure thing about telling you my thoughts on it while I don't know about screenshots.. I fear that it will be yet another game without that built-in ability to take any.

If so, dear FRAPS users, do you happen to know if someone (a friend of mine) could purchase it for me and somehow give me ownership? Like donate the program or buy a license for someone else? If so, a friend of mine would do it for me (I never do online business myself).

You don´t need to buy fraps in order to use it for screenshots, I just dl:ed it and it works just fine for that. The only thing I can´t do is record more that 30 seconds of video.

[Art Blade]

isn't there a logo in the middle of the pic or something advertising FRAPS or telling everybody that they're looking at a trial version? Also, if I'm not mistaken, the full version allows various formats for pic and video output, doesn't it?

However, I'd still like to know if I could purchase FRAPS from someone who bought it for me (I might want to record FC2 vids and stuff like that) :)

[deadman1]

There´s no logo on screenshots, but you a small logo on the top of your screen when you record video.

[Art Blade]

Thanks, deadman :) By the way, since this game uses "Games For Windows Live!" I reactivated my account from back in the days of FUEL and you're still a buddy :)

And indeed, no ingame screenshots, nor does irfanView or PRNTSCR w@&k.


BULLETSTORM -- first impressions --

The installation of the game itself was unspectacular, but when it came to GFWL things got a bit annoying. The game starts with a prompt to log in with GFWL and GFWL told me an update was available so I had to either accept the update or die. Well, sort of. When the update was nearly finished it told me to save my game progress (which?) and to quit the game so the update could finish. Unfortunately I wasn't able to quit the game because I hadn't yet started it, so I was caught in an infinite loop -- task manager, end process..  ::) idiots. Of course it required me to restart the game and again I was told an update was available.. same procedure.  :D When I finally got everything sorted with GFWL, that alone had taken like half an hour to get it over with, I had been "installing" the game for like 45 minutes. I LOVE IT!  >:((

Because I have a limited edition of the game, I needed to redeem my code and stuff, using GFWL. An error occurred. The game quit itself and I was forced to troubleshoot it (I'd have liked to literally shoot the trouble or troublesome parts of the devs who come up with crap like that). There was no solution to be found, try again?  ??? Alright, the next time the game quit itself and on my desktop I could see a "Microsoft Marketplace" (a small rectangular picture without a process to it in the task manager) trying to install itself and load updates and all that. I started the game once more and after logging in to GFLW for the thousandths time I tried to redeem my code once more and.. it worked. As if nothing had ever happened. Innocently, so to speak. The extra content was some stuff I have no idea what it will be good for but apparently it only plays a role in the MP part of the game and I received some 25,000 experience points for MP as well.  A brief check told me I was able to host MP games.

Fiach, fancy some MP? :)

Alright, now the SP bit. Game controls are rather simple, walking, running, crouching, sliding, reload, kick, aim, fire, leash... easy to get used to. The graphics setting are all maxed out, no AA or AF and no VSYNC, smooth on my rig. Looks nice, a little cartoon-ish and over the top, but the game is supposed to be a little over the top as well, so that is alright. My given character looks like Wolverine with a body like Hulk and has got a voice and lines like Duke Nukem. Not a bad thing.

I am led by the game along some strange Sci-Fi mercenary story and from checkpoint to checkpoint, automatic game saving, and can restart chapters or from last save points. Basically the action consists of shooting enemies which I can pull towards me using a leash which looks like a cord on high voltage sparkling and dazzling with electricity and when the enemy "arrives" flying I can kick him and or shoot him. It is a splatter feast. They rip and shred and fly away or stick to protruding spikes in a wall or whatever caught them when flying away from me after a kick or they don't arrive because on their way to me they get caught by spikes or sharp obstacles.

Simple fun and non-stop action, quite a bit of gore and foul language and a nice looking alien or Sci-Fi environment..

Having a good time :)  :-X

[Art Blade]

Playing this game is entertaining. It is almost like it was when playing Crysis(1) regarding all the strange stuff and the guns and all, no idea but it does remind me of Crysis, yet I am sitting here grinning most of the time listening to the ongoing chat between my character and the guy I am running around with. Both have those juicy manly voices and keep talking bad a$$ talk and making comments that remind me very much of Duke Nukem. I like the graphics a lot, and so far it doesn't get on my nerves that it is strictly corridor gaming, there is just too much action that distracts me from that fact. It is a feeling like "I want to get out of here" in a way that I want to shoot my way out of there, run through passages and down paths, gliding down slopes and jumping across obstacles, all the way trying to kick and whip and shoot the living daylights out of the enemies that come in numbers but not too many.. just enough to keep you busy.

The specialty of the game is "the art of killing" as there are perhaps a hundred or more ways to kill enemies. There is a checklist for you to see what combos you've discovered so far and you keep unlocking kill combos that are worth certain amounts of experience points which you spend on upgrades or ammo. To do that, there are drop boxes every now and then, basically checkpoints, where you can refill your ammo or check stats and whatnot.

Non-stop action. :)

[Art Blade]

Just one example of different ways of killing enemies:

There is one weapon that fires "flails" which are two remote-controlled grenades strung together with a steel cord. When fired at an enemy it flings those two grenades towards your target and wraps them around the enemy rendering him tied up and helpless. The second time you fire that flail gun will set off those grenades. So you leash at him pulling him towards you, flail him and.. well, now instead of blowing him up right away you can choose to kick that walking bomb back to his friends and only then  blow him (and his friends) up.  :-D

[Art Blade]

I've played for hours with little breaks in between, this game is so much FUN ^+-+ :-X

Let's put it this way: If you like to walk around with one or more (AI) buddies (who won't die on you nor shoot you in the back) and wreak havoc to the best of your abilities (which increase with time and practice) and if you like a FPS game with enemies that you can kill a thousand ways depending on how creative your sick mind works, using weapons that are mind-blowing and render your enemies mind- and headless, if you like non-stop action with insane environments and nice light effects, if you are a fan of mean and explicit language, gore and dark humour combined with a bada$$ attitude, then you're 100% in for it  :-() :-X

[PZ]

isn't there a logo in the middle of the pic or something advertising FRAPS or telling everybody that they're looking at a trial version? Also, if I'm not mistaken, the full version allows various formats for pic and video output, doesn't it?

However, I'd still like to know if I could purchase FRAPS from someone who bought it for me (I might want to record FC2 vids and stuff like that) :)

Although I'm not positive, I think it will w@&k as long as the person isn't using FRAPS - as I recall, things are registered through my email account, but I didn't see any regulations regarding where in the world it is used.

[Art Blade]

thank you, PZ.. might be worth a thought  :)

[fragger]

Thanks for the impressions thus far, Art :-X Shame you can't get any screenies. Why don't the devs or whoever think of these things? I mean, wouldn't it be in their interest if fans could easily post their screenshots all around the net, in forums like this one? It's essentially free advertising and promotion... go figure.

Anyway, the game sounds like a splatterfest all right :-() Nothing wrong with that! I like the sound of that grenade bola thingy, cool :-X

Have fun mate, looking forward to hearing more :)

[Art Blade]

 ;D

All weapons have a second fire mode and both can be combined with sliding, kicking and leashing. The shotgun has four barrels next to each other and you can shoot enemies that respond to the blast depending on how far or close you are. Far means they get propelled backwards (perhaps sending them sailing over a ledge resulting in a "vertigo" kill as they fall down a cliff) and closer will sever limbs or cut them in half. The leash has a "thumper" mode that sends all enemies around you flying straight up which may shatter them on the ceiling or switch on slow motion view so you can shoot them as the float slowly around or kick them away into someone or something or again over a ledge so they fall down a cliff. Quite some fun  :-()