Bulletstorm

The Good
This game was one of the reasons I decided to become a programmer (which I am now). I have always loved gaming, but this really showed me for the first time what Visual C++, Direct X 9.0 and nVIDIA technology can do, to genuinely make someone's life better. I was going through some difficult things in life when I started playing Bulletstorm. It's so thoroughly entertaining and visceral that it allowed me to forget about everything and just enjoy the action. It gave me enough strength to deal with the problems I had in life. It's my #4 favorite game of all-time.

The action flows smoothly in the vein of the legendary Halo series. You carry three weapons at the same time. One of them is a U.S. Army standard Carbine assault rifle. This is actually the weakest weapon in the game, so you won't use it much. It's used only when your other two weapons run out of ammo.

The other two weapons are simply glorious. I don't care what games you may have played. These guns are massively entertaining to use. Personally I haven't seen weapons this good since the original Halo: Combat Evolved. There aren't grenades, but there are other types of attacks that make up for it. Those are massively awesome as well. In short, if you like shooting and dealing damage, Bulletstorm is a must.

The game never stops giving. You're treated to one huge and giant scenario after another. Fast-paced, non-stop explosive action, and there is always something new and exciting in the next level. Many things feel original and haven't been done before in other action games. Best of all, (at least on the normal difficulty), you never have to think much. You just move around and shoot things instinctively. The game does all the work for you, and just keeps throwing fun at you. All you need to do is just sit back and enjoy everything. No effort is required. You certainly don't need to read any guides or walkthroughs (BTW I hate Braid so much for this). The normal difficulty is just right and should be suitable for any player with some shooter experience before.

The path is always linear. The action takes place almost exclusively during the day. I found this noteworthy. It's like Prison Break's season 2 where most of the events also took place during the day. So that you can always feel the heat of the action.

The cutscenes are worth watching. The dialogue actually makes sense and are entertaining to listen to. The closing credits were very well-done. Powerful music played by an orchestra, and we got to see the names of all the people who made this game. Man, there were HUNDREDS of them. Artists, Programmers, Testers, Producers, Marketing and PR, and many others. Some of these roles had a "Sr." title in front of them, such as "Sr. Programmer". This was the first time that I saw, in a game, the kind of person I wanted to become. And they're from at least five different companies. It's an amazing, multi-national project that gathered a lot of talented people. I thought that I work in a big development team (there are about 150 people in my team). But Bulletstorm is really something on a different level.

The action being so hugely explosive and colorful, the game actually knows when to step back and create a quiet moment. It reminds me of two the genre's best -- Halo and Max Payne. There wasn't any epic final boss battles in either game. In the end we got a peaceful moment with the characters instead. It was very effective and an excellent ending to an excellent game.

The Bad
The original Halo allowed you to carry two weapons at the same time. So you only needed to press one button to switch weapons. In Bulletstorm you carry three weapons. This is more annoying than it should be, because you have to think before you switch weapons ("Which weapon will I switch to?"). It gets in the way of the .

Many Skillshots are hidden and hard to discover, and you have to look it up on Wikia or GameFAQs to be able to achieve them. What's the point? Why make them hidden at all?

The Bottom Line
Bulletstorm is about guns, and how to use them artfully and masterfully. You haven't seen what guns are capable of doing, you just haven't, unless you have played this game.