To this day, I still remember picking up Bulletstorm. I’ll be honest and say the game did not interest me when I first heard about it. Quite frankly, I didn’t even really know much about it until it actually came out. Well one day at this local gaming store I live by, I picked it up for literally $5. After a week or so of playing this balls to the wall action campaign, I thought to myself, “why was I able to get this game for $5?” Because wow! This game was pretty freaking awesome. Well developers People Can Fly and Gearbox Publishing must have thought the same thing, as now they are remastering this underrated first-person shooter with Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.
Now for those of you who have never played Bulletstorm, it is a first person shooter set on a distant planet where players take on the role of Grayson Hunt. After crash landing on the planet, Hunt must fight his way through anyone who betrayed him, while also fighting the local mutant inhabitants. I’m making Bulletstorm’s story sound more serious than it really is, because the game really doesn’t have a compelling narrative, nor does it try to have one. All the game cares about is giving you a plethora of unique weapons to get your highest Skillshot score. The entire game is set around this Skillshot system, which gives players rewards for the most destructive and creative kills. Players are also given a leash of sorts of that grabs enemies and pulls them into slow motion in front of you, giving you time to think of your next deadly move. Or…just kick them into something. Kicking an enemy towards something deadly never got dull or boring during my entire time playing through the original game.
Gearbox (set as publisher for this remaster) set up a pretty fun booth at PAX East in Boston. Here, they put up a Skillshot tournament, with a $10,000 prize. I was able to get a private demo and got the opportunity to sit down with one of Bulletstorm’s producers, Elliott Hamilton and Gearbox Public Relations Manager Vincent Slaven. As I played for about 25 minutes of kicking bad guys into cacti, electric walls, and piranha infested waters, I was able to talk to Hamilton about Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition in depth. The biggest question I had, which is the question for most remasters, was “Why Bulletstorm?” Hamilton had stated that she believed Bulletstorm was a game that just fell in the flood of games at the time of release in 2011 and never really got the love and praise it deserved. She was right in this instance, as I stated earlier how I was someone who bought the game for about $5 not long after it came out. The game had a fun personality to it, which was needed considering the game is revolved around rewarding players for creative kills.
Hamilton also brought up another good point about why remastering this game was such a good idea, which is the current streaming culture in the gaming industry. Now yes, video game streaming and gameplay walkthroughs had been around in 2011, but the culture has never been bigger than it is now, or as easily accessible. This is definitely thanks in part to Twitch and apps built into the PS4 and Xbox One. Bulletstorm is game that is as fun to play as it is watch someone else play it. The Skillshot system could not be more stream worthy, as gamers will love to see what creative carnage other players can dish out. I even see lists on YouTube showing “Top 10 Plays of —-.” A game like Bulletstorm, which encourages creativity in combat, is the perfect title for stuff like this. Sitting down with Gearbox really put into perspective why this game is being remastered for a new generation of players.
Thanks to the current consoles, Bulletstorm has gotten upgraded with some impressive textures in it’s environments. In regards to gameplay, the game of course plays the exact same way, but thanks to its higher resolution and increased polygon count, the carnage of Bulletstorm has never looked so beautiful. Some newly added audio effects were given as well, so blowing up a meat sack of an enemy sounds more disgusting, but yet hilarious. At release, the remaster will also run at 60 fps and will include all previously released DLC content.
Another treat, which I got to experience myself, is that players who pre-order Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition will get Duke Nukem as a playable character. If there is any video game character’s personality that resonates perfectly in Bulletstorm’s world, its him. As I was creating destruction in my whole demo, Duke was constantly spouting one-liners left and right. Also during specific story sections, he was even questioning what the hell he was even doing in this game, giving some fun 4th wall breaking moments. Hamilton had stated that it was challenging to get Duke’s lines to make sense throughout the game’s narrative, but luckily it all combines together extremely well. As stated before, the game’s story isn’t taken seriously at all, so some Duke Nukem commentary is much appreciated.
When the remastered title releases on April 7th, it will be jam packed with content. The previously released DLC includes all the multiplayer maps, (something I have yet to experience) echo maps to dish out the best Skillshots, and also a new Overkill Campaign Mode, which has an unrestricted arsenal of weapons and skillshots, making the game even more chaotic than it already is.
