PC Gamer - UK (2022-06)

There’s probably a way of describing
Bulletstorm that gives a less-revealing
picture about the cleanliness of my
lavatory, but hopefully you get the
point. Some games hide the
enjoyment under the blanket of story.
Bulletstorm doesn’t. It’s obvious to
the point of obscenity,
but playing it again
now feels like a rebirth.
It’s a game that
understands what’s
brilliant about shooting
baddies. There are no
pretensions to high art.
You’ll never need to
press a button to
explore your feelings. Instead, you
play a human sideburn who swears a
lot and boots people into giant cacti.
And it’s brilliant.
It’s unfair to make Bulletstorm
sound like big, dumb, fun because
there’s actually nothing dumb about
it. It’s meticulously engineered for

pure enjoyment. Yes, there are dick

jokes and chopped limbs, but you get

the underlying sense exacting minds

spent a long time ensuring it feels

perfect when you kick a large man in

the bottom. It’s weird, because at

times it’s disarmingly pretty. I almost

feel guilty for sliding

past Bulletstorm’s grand

scenery just so I can try

to explode three men

in a row. But, somehow,

the balance of art and

raw enjoyment is

almost perfect.

SARRANO HAM

Bulletstorm has an approach to fun

ideas that’s generous to the point of

wastefulness. When you’re not

yanking enemies into perfectly-

placed spiked walls, you’re turning

them into human grenades or

flattening them with doors. There’s

so much creativity here it feels like

no human, irrespective of their

capacity for fun, could fully

appreciate it. It’s like hungry drunks

ordering food in an Indian restaurant.

Yes, you might manage the skillshot

lamb bhuna and the energy leash

saag paneer. But the remote-

controlled dinosaur section is the

peshwari naan that will rupture your

stomach if you even look at it.

Story-wise, it’s less nutritious.

Characters aren’t so much drawn as

they are fingerpainted in primary

colours. Protagonist Grayson is the

damaged alcoholic, Ishi the

moralising spiritual one, and Trishka

is 1 995’s approximation of an

independent woman. And the big

bad, General Sarrano, is so nakedly

evil that he makes Albert Wesker

look like Mr Ripley. But honestly,

who cares? This is the wrong shop

for nuanced characterisation.

Bulletstorm only sells cheese... and

I’m buying.

84

Bulletstormis everything

fun about first-person

shooter games, written

on the sole of a size- 12

army boot.

VERDICT

S

ometimes, trying to find the fun in a game is like looking for a
lost contact lens. You scrabble around on the bathroom floor,
with your knees pock-marked from the filth-encrusted mat and
having ancient pubes sticking to your sweating, desperate paws.
Then you look at the mirror and realise that the contact lens was
stuck to your forehead the entire time.

DICK GRAYSON

Profanity and human pincushions in BULLETSTORM: FULL CLIP EDITION

Somehow, the

balance of art

and raw

enjoyment is

almost perfect

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

Quips, whips, dicks,

kicks – the cleverest

stupid gameever made

EXPECT TO PAY

£30

DEVELOPER

People Can Fly

PUBLISHER

GearboxSoftware

REVIEWED ON

Intel Core i7-7 700 CUP

@ 3.60GHz, 16 GB RAM,

NVIDIA GeForce GTX

1070, Windows 10

MULTIPLAYER

Yes

LINK

bulletstorm.com

90

OLD GAMES REVISITED by Matthew Elliott

THEY’RE BACK

In a happier alternate

universe, this is the last

scene ofPrometheus.