Okay so for the unannounced, Bulletstorm is a shooter that sits in it's own league of strange and awesome. It has the old-school tone set to newer standards, giving you crazy weapons, secondary fire, trash-talking space soldiers, and some of the most creative vulgarity you'll probably ever witness in gaming. However, it got one foot caught in the COD bear trap of the era, and also decided they wanted you to heal behind cover, could only carry a few weapons, and they had that guy who swore up and down that people loved quick-time events down every other corner. Meanwhile they also listened to crazy earl, who said "I want to play as steve blum on a drunken rampage, where he gets extra points for shooting a guy in the nuts, kicking his head off, and surfing on his corpse!" The surfing bit didn't make it, but they overcompensated by giving you all sorts of other crazy point-earning schemes out of this combat system they dubbed: Skill Shots. Welcome to Bullestorm, a game so stupid, trigger-happy, and imaginatively swear-happy, that somebody actually wrote this incredible scene:
So with that tone set, you probably wouldn't expect a whole lot of the story, but to dismiss it is one of the most criminal acts I've probably seen so many reviews do upon this game's release. The story in place is actually quite powerful, despite all major character talking in a way that'd have their mother's feeding them lye soap for meals. The game stars Grayson Hunt, a space pirate that used to be a part of an elite confederate team, until he discovered the full extent to which is squad was being used. Now they all went renegade, are wanted criminals, and decide to pick a fight with their former boss, Sarrano... who happens to have a ship that's 8 times bigger. In a last act of sabotage, manages to send everything crashing down onto a nearby resort planet. Things are far from a vacation however, when it turns out the planet is run by mutants and savage creeps who run gang wars against other creeps. What makes things even worse, is your only surviving crew member lived by a last-minute cyborg surgery, and it's crude implant is causing an AI mind to try and take over, wishing death on Gray for his self-destructive and vengeful habits. The bright side? He'll spare you if you can fight to get to General Sarrano, who's is the only one with connections to get off the planet. Along the way you manage to meet an equally as pissed off solider, Trishka, and she joins you in trying to reach her boss, and manages to discover some of the people she's with happen to be heavily involved in a traumatic past event in her life. Now you've got a story about revenge, friends, guns and mutants, and it all comes together in an interesting way. When the game stops it's usual routine to have the two pals place a gamble reliant on the player, and the characters actually honor it, small moments like that make it all sink in even better. There's quite a few late game twists, and it all comes together as a pretty awesome bromance revenge story full of crass humor. Every voice actor, with Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale being the recognizable highlights, are bringing their A-game here with stellar performances as well.
Now the gameplay, is relatively awesome. As I mentioned before, it goes in with a bit of old-school attitude and mentality. You've got all kinds of crazy and cool weapons, ranging from a quad-barrel shotgun, a bouncing cannonball gun, and a drill gun. Each weapon has a secondary fire "charge" mode, with more limited ammo capacity, but all the interesting features like turning a simple pistol into a firework launcher, the shotgun into a super heated blast-wave, or allowing the drill to steer it's victims. Each weapon has a list of assigned skillshot with it, and a lot of times you'll have to combine accuracy with the naturally given leash (also has a charge shot), kick, and slide abilities your character can use at any time. For example, sliding into an enemy while blasting them with a shotgun gets you a torpedo skillshot, or you could send a kicked/leashed enemy out, lace them with explosives, and blow them up beside another enemy to get a homie missile (yeah, there's a bunch of puns like that). You spend these skillshot points later on ammo, and ammo-capacity upgrades. There's also lots of environmental objects that add onto this mentality, like explosive barrels, parasite plants, cliffs, wall-spikes, and set pieces like kicking an enemy into a helicopter rotor. It all also lends itself naturally to secondary score-attack echo mode, where you replay pieces of levels uninterrupted by story to wrack up points on a 1-3 star scale.
The sad thing though, is that the hit detection will sometimes fuck up your skillshots, or the skill shots just won't register right. This is especially true with chaining multiples on a kill. Sometimes when you shotgun an enemy off a cliff, it just counts as a kill, sometimes a cliff kill (vertigo), and only ever-so-often do you actually get the pump-action skillshot which quite directly translates to shooting enemies into things. Why the hell doesn't that occur all the times it actually happens? Sometimes, I almost consider the idea of turning off the Skillshot HUD so I'm not freaking out about what it counts, but this stuff does directly tie into the gameplay. It ties into getting ammo, unlocking trophies, and now with the remaster a game-changing reward on getting infinite ammo, and a new echo mode where you have to be very picky about skillshots. This stuff matters, so when bomb the hell out of a site and are only met with a base +10 for three kills instead of a +50x3 for a gang bang kill, it really does make a difference, and it's stupid that they couldn't fix their core system right in either the first entry, or even in this remaster. I'm surprised I don't hear anyone else complaining about it, but it's undeniable that both copies seem to fickle with whether they could a blast into a spike wall as a spike-wall only skillshot, or a pump-action, or both, and so on with other examples. Oh and then there's the flailgun, which has this bullshit auto-aim to it regardless of turning off aim assist. I'll be aiming at an enemy and then it'll wind up sticking to a wall right to the left of my aim, totally ruining the shot and delaying another by about 3 seconds since I have to detonate the first one I fired. I don't even remember that happening in the original copy, so... somebody get on fixing that if this remaster brought that on.
Now let's talk about it's fusion with more modern mechanics. This stuff works so well, that honestly I actually don't mind the 3 weapon limit as much as I usually would. Here it's almost a matter of strategizing which weapons you want to work with, unlock more skill points for, and there's always a station near the last to switch up your gear when you really need it. Plus the environmental and melee options are open, meaning you've always got more weapons than the three guns you carry. I suppose the regenerating health, while less interesting than a real system, is also present to streamline the combat. However, there are times when things don't work quite right. Not all covers actually do their job of covering you, and every second forced to try and find crouching spots is time wasted, slowing the combat down and reminding you of why you should hate this lazy and skill-less regenerating health stuff. I definitely don't recommend playing the game on anything higher than medium difficulty for that reason, cover sucks. Then there's the QTEs, which I don't mind as small connecting points in-between segments (like climbing to get from one building to another), but the game is way too happy with them, sometimes distracting you with a silly "QUICK, HOLD L2 FOR MAX POINTS" to look at a mini-boss enemy you've seen 8 times before. I almost have to laugh at the stupidity of a certain early one that has you zoom in and stare at a skull, and... nothing else happens. A lot of times it's not interesting, or useful, it's just there to be there, and is dated nonsense the game shouldn't have ever included. It probably did so as just a gimmick. I suppose it's also worth mentioning, the game moves in a linear path, and so you're left out if you're expecting old-school exploration, but I don't think the game necessarily needed it anyway.
Full clip, or firing blanks?
So let's go over the full extent of the remasters: On the generous side you've got a new color filter to toggle on/off at the options in any moment, they brought back multiplayer co-op survival, a new echo mode that changes up the system with special challenges to play through, and then there's Overkill mode. Overkill mode is essentially new game +, telling you that if you beat the game, you get to play through it all with a whole weapon wheel, all weapons at any point in the game, and if you've achieved all of a weapons skillshots you've also got the ability to have infinite ammo for said weapon. Your quick-select on consoles still works based on what you have selected out of dropkit consoles, and you can use this to help wrap up any lacking skillshots and have your infinite ammo unlocked right on the spot. Less obvious changes to the game, include the ability to play as Duke Nukem (sold separately if you don't grab a launch print), and subtle option features like a crouch protection... which supposedly keeps you from accidentally ducking on what I assume are the default controls. I'd imagine it's just easier to switch to toggle, and just used that the entire game. The graphics are okay, but haven't aged the best since it retains that strong Unreal 3 engine look. It has better AA, and thankfully still looks beautiful in places with it's naturally colorful art, but the models and technical visuals aren't all too impressive. I'm really not sure whether that could have been actually addressed, or if it was part of the model and engine limitations. The new color filter usually makes things grayer, and so I wouldn't suggest that helps with anything, though it's fun to play with and sometimes there's a spot that could use some de-orange-ing and the result looks a little better.As for Duke Nukem, he's a fun addition, but I'm cautious to make a bigger deal than what it's worth. He's voiced right, has a few of Gray's lines rewritten to suit him, and makes some hilarious new jabs including a couple meta-jokes poking fun at the fact he's even there. Obviously other characters didn't get revoiced, and will still call him Gray, but Duke plays along with it and sometimes jabs back at the idea with one of my favorite lines being "How many freaks do I have to kill, before you remember my name!?". However his faults come in with a couple odd lines, and his very badly modeled cut-scene appearance. He was sloppily placed like a reskin over top of gray, having lips not match his actual words, and even gestures that don't follow up, like pointing at stuff he won't be talking about with his new lines. It's especially noticeable late game, where the character has some of the most awkward silent speeches and gestures (from new lines that were shorter than the old ones, but Duke still talks on because it was a sloppy reskin over Gray). It essentially boils down to the awesome idea of choosing between Steve Blum's voice, or Jon St. John's voice. He costs $5 to those that don't have a copy that comes with him, and if you're into Duke Nukem, it ain't a bad deal. Though he changes just enough of the story that I definitely don't recommend new-comers playing Duke first. However combined with the heavier price of the general remaster, and considering the problems, I can see how it's not a comforting proposition and it's a shame they didn't just include him with the base game for everybody. I'd recommend him if your a fan of this novel concept, but to everyone else, Steve Blum's character as the default Grayson Hunt is good enough.
Conclusion
This game comes close to scoring a flawed fun, but honestly, it's way too fun for that at the end of the day. It's got some issues with it's core design, but for all the fun it's worth, the game holds up as more than just an anti-COD game of the early decade. It's still a fun trip to come back to, full of creative kills, crazy weapons and enemies, and a fascinating revenge tale full of twists and vulgar humor. If that isn't enough, there's all sorts of extra content ranging from a fun score attack mode that makes the best of it's core feature, to the newly added Overkill mode that gives you the full power you deserve after beating a lengthy and fun campaign. There's a lot of value here. Many will rightfully question a one-game remaster for the price of $50, but as a fan who got it at a slight discount (pre-order discount + Amazon) I was sure happy with it. I totally understand other fans are waiting for a drop though, but I say that exclusively towards the "been there, done that" fans. If you're an FPS fan who missed out on this game entirely though, stop making excuses that it's too old to pay for, and go check it out. This is the definitive version of a good game a lot of people missed out on, and every crude FPS fanatic should be quoting general Sarannos in saying "I've got a scotch, and I am violently fiddlin' with my balls in anticipation at your arrival" towards this game.
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