First person shooters often fall into the usual traps that leave them feeling stuck in a rut. Bulletstorm was a game that tried to offer something different but went unnoticed. It was over the top and it was insane, but just didn’t catch on.
Now a remake has come in the form of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. Its prettier, runs better and has the preorder bonus of being able to play the game as Duke Nukem. I will not lie, that is what attracted me to the game, and I played it as the Duke. But is this a good game? And does Duke fit in well?
Bulletstorm knows what it wants to be. It is all out action, insane destruction and full of hype. The weapons were great, the visuals stand out far better and best of all, the game runs well on most PC, and is optimized well. The story had some stupid moments, but that was part of the charm. But most people want to know the important part. How was the game when you played as Duke Nukem. Well, if you couldn’t guess from the title of the review, this plays as a much better Duke Nukem game than Duke Nukem Forecer did.
Duke Nukem just fits right into the game. The dialogue doesn’t change really aside from Duke remarking about how he is n a new situation, and reacting to people calling him by the name of the game’s actual protagonist. It is actually funny how they handled it. Duke still does feel like a bit of a relic from the past, and his dialogue is cringe worthy at times. This is annoying given that games like Shadow Warrior show that this type of character can be done well in the modern day. It feels like the writers refuse to make Duke more up to date. He doesn’t need to lose his personality, but as stated, Shadow Warrior took a similar character and made him hilarious in modern games but focusing his character in a certain way.
Bulletstorm is fun. There is no debate about that. There is the occasional framerate drop and screen tear, but it isn’t too much of an issue. No, for me the main issue was something else altogether, I played with both mouse and keyboard and an Xbox One controller, and noticed some issues. Some FPS games I play on PC feel great with the controller, and even manage to keep the same feeling as the mouse and keyboard. Bulletstorm doesn’t have that feeling on PC. At least not yet. The controls didn’t feel mapped out well at times, and trying to do certain actions just got frustrating. As a result I had to use the mouse and keyboard. I like to use both normally and switch things up, so this was disappointing.
Overall, I did like Bulletstorm. Its a fast paced game, with great combat, and the addition of Duke Nukem was inspired. I think this is worth looking into, even without the Duke Nukem mode, which will probably be available to all as DLC later.