Bulletstorm is Epic Games’ latest creation which will be released in a little less than a month. In honor of the title, a demo was released onto the Xbox Live marketplace, left for the gamers to critique and devour. Unsurprisingly, Bulletstorm is an amazingly capable first person shooter that manages to keep the overall style of Gears of War.
This game starts off in a beautiful, war torn, environment that flaunts the power of the Unreal Engine. The crisp high resolution textures and successful art direction should do enough to make your draw drop a mere minute into the game. After finishing the admiration, you are thrown into action with your two teammates following closely.
The action resembles that of Gears of War 2 on hardcore difficulty, with the exception of the boosted artificial intelligence. The enemies take quite a lot of bullets before actually kicking the bucket, which is sure to turn off a lot of the Call of Duty crowd. I personally believe the reason for this is because Epic Games does not really want you to spend that much time running and gunning, they prefer you to find creative ways to defeat your enemies.
Early on into the demo, you are faced with such an opportunity. There is a metal plating on the ceiling that is holding up a mass of debris. The game requests that you press the LB button, after which your grabbing mechanism is put in use and the enemies are buried alive. Not only do you get more points for defeating them creatively, but it is probably more rewarding to the player to do so.
While the game is excellently crafted, I feel that it is one of those experiences that will get old very quickly. The first time I kicked an enemy into the jagged environment and watched him hang there, it was fairly pleasing. Doing it for a second time though, I lacked a reaction. This is a game that provides entertainment solely through it’s interesting gameplay mechanics coupled with great level design. For that reason, this demo will most likely be good for a single play before you are left bored or wanting more.
The demo is fairly short, seemingly to offer a mere glimpse into the direction that Bulletstorm is headed. It is, however, sufficient enough to know what ot expect should you purchase the full game.
Bulletstorm is slated for release on February 22nd, 2011. It will ship with a beta access code to Gears of War 3, which is all the more reason to get it, even if you are not interested in the game itself.
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