Bulletstorm

Rating: M

Score: 9.0/10

You know, the shooter video games really do try to describe overly-manly men single-handedly saving the universe from evil aliens most of the time. Epic, the video game developer, is especially bad for it, but it's seen almost everywhere. Now, another one that might be so over-the-top manly you could consider it a parody. It certainly is hilarious, but hopefully such a highly anticipated game has more going for it, right? This game is available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

You are Grayson Hunt, an assassin working for a corrupt government with your team of friends/men/assassins. You realize how corrupt the government is, and you take a strike against them. Serious stuff goes down and only one of your crew-members makes it out alive (albeit he's a cyborg now). It's up to you two to find your previous captain and stop his madness.

Normally, such a game wouldn't appeal to me (if it wasn't for the whole joking attitude it has going for it half the time). The scene with Ichi (your cyborg crewmate) and you standing in a small elevator overlooking a sunset discussing their heterosexuality amused me more than most of the fire-fights.

Not to say the fire-fighting isn't awesome; it has every right to be called awesome. It's fast-paced, and very addictive. It relies on a skill-tracking system that gives you points for being flashy. Simply shooting someone gives you no points, while using your whip or boot to fling people around and into hazards gives tons. Points give your weapons upgrades.

Weapons are another thing altogether. Each weapon has a "charge" attack, which can only be bought. Your charge attack is a super-powered, single-use attack that usually destroys a small group of individuals. The machine gun's charge, for example, unleashes several bullets at once, and the sniper rifle launches an explosive shot.

There are multiple weapons you can get, but all are very over-the-top, with the exception of the machine gun which is standard and normal. The revolver is a cannon without wheels, the shotgun can easily separate a man's upper torso from his lower, and then there's the gun that can attach an explosive vest to the victim. I don't know what kind of "inspiration" you'd need to think up these ideas, but the silliness is only completed by these weapons.

If it wasn't made by Epic, I might deem this game a parody of the overly macho video games nowadays. The dialogue is nothing short of hysterical, and there's enough testosterone in this game to pump five normal shooters dry. Yet, it wanders around from the silliness to having serious story issues about self-redemption, controlling oneself, and the importance of friends. It could be argued its comedic relief, but it's happens too often for that to be logical. I wonder if Epic games were trying to make one game while the other developers, People Can Fly, were trying to make something else.

Either way, all in all you're getting a lot of game. It's jammed with the goodness of a great shooter, filled with the unique qualities of its weapons and gameplay, and completed with its hysterical dialogue. It wanders around without clear direction, parody or otherwise, and even the exciting fire-fights can get exhausting. Despite its limitations, Bulletstorm is a shot of adrenaline.