The long thin over-the-top hallway of early Bulletstorm

Posted by on February 22, 2011 in Games

[Ed. note: Ben Sones' comments appear here and here, in this thread on Bulletstorm.]

So far (I’m several acts into Chapter Two), [Bulletstorm] has been one long relentlessly linear hallway, about 20 to 60 feet wide. It doesn’t matter what the environment is. Underground cavern, desert landscape, sprawling alien city–it’s all just 20 to 60 foot hallways, peppered with things to hide behind. And sometimes, just to mix it up, things that explode.

Sometimes the game decides that you are getting a little too crazy with that 20 to 60 feet of wiggle room, and the freedom to traverse it at the pace of your choosing. It will then make you play a rail shooter level. I’ve done three of them so far. They are about as much fun as rail shooters tend to be, which is to say: not even a little. One of them was visually spectacular. Imagine a QTE directed by Roland Emmerich. So over the top that they’ll have to invent a new word for “over the top,” so that everyone can understand how much more over the top it is compared to other things that are over the top. But here on my side of the screen, it was still just a boring QTE.

Sometimes the game presents you with QTE “shoot the target” events that are so important, so vital that you not miss, that the game even aims for you. I swear I am not making that up.

Like the environments, the game itself is unwaveringly linear and scripted. It underscores this by wrenching control of the game away from you constantly, to show you something important, or to show you something unimportant, or sometimes just to play a line of dialog. Sometimes, as though to offer reassurance that it really does trust you not to screw up the carefully scripted bits with your dirty mouselooking hands, the game gives you the opportunity to give up control of the camera willingly. An on-screen prompt will appear, and if you quickly press and hold RMB, the camera will slowly pan away to look at whatever the game wants you to see, and then it rewards you with some points.

When you do have control of the camera, it’s often very obvious what the game wants you to do. Oh, I’m supposed to kick that guy into those electrical wires. I guess that guy is camped behind those cacti because I’m supposed to grab him with the Leash and pull him onto them. Ah, a courtyard filled with exploding barrels. I’ll bet a whole bunch of guys are about to run out and try to hide behind them. Yep, here they come. None of it feels spontaneous or creative. It’s less like playing a game, and more like acting out a part in a play. On the rare occasions when you die (rare because the game is quite easy so far) and have to replay an area, the heavy-handed railroading becomes even more painfully obvious. I question the game’s replayability, because it somehow manages to not feel fresh the first time.

  • MrWolf

    Thank the HEAVENS I can still come to QT3 for my daily dose of contrarian game “review” that attempts to eviscerate a positively-received AAA title for design flaws, story concepts, or gameplay mechanics that this same site/blog/mishmash-of-words has neglected to harp on in other, less well-funded titles.

  • Machete

    upvote MrWolf

  • Alan Kleiman

    I hope that posting Qt3 forum posts on the blog doesn’t become a habit. Forums are for letting everyone know that someone else’s favorite thing sucks, and for slinging barely-masked offenses at each other.

    More seriously, there’s nothing wrong with Mr. Sones’ commentary, but there’s nothing particularly special about it, either. Should I go researching on your board to see what other games he liked so I can figure out how to fame his complaints? At least with Tom Chick I know I won’t agree with him.

  • Joe

    Yeah, I’m just not digging the contrived entertainment Bulletstorm has to offer. I’m going to keep playing in the hopes it picks up later but whereas a game like Singularity gives the player a handful of tools and lets us do whatever the hell we like, Bulletstorm seems determined to lead me around by the nose. My expectation is that it’s only a glaring problem with the early part of the game…

  • http://www.quartertothree.com Tom Chick

    At times when I can’t comment on a game — I haven’t seen Bulletstorm and likely won’t any time soon — I would like for there to be some sort of presence for it on the front page. And Ben’s no mere forum contrarian. I think you can tell pretty well from what he’s written whether you’d mind Bulletstorm’s early limitations. A contrarian just tells you he doesn’t like something; a reviewer tells you *why* he didn’t like it, at which point you can decide for yourself how much that matters to you. I still have hopes that Bulletstorm might pan out as a replayable score-based challenge game, but I’m really bummed that it seems to not have any of People Can Fly’s magic Painkiller juice.

    The funny thing is I was *this* close to shutting down Killzone 3 (!) last night to go to a midnight sale and pick up a copy of Bulletstorm. I’m glad I held off.

  • malkav11

    On the other hand, there’s Quintin Smith’s rather positive Wot I Think over on Rockpapershotgun. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/22/bulletstorm-review-pc/#more-52018

    I haven’t played it yet ($60 is -way- too much for an FPS as far as I’m concerned, with the possible exception of Bioshock Infinite) but it sounds like much of Mr. Sones’ complaints are, well, his taste. And I don’t know if I share it, although similarly, my own tastes diverge at least to a degree from Mr. Smith’s, as he was pretty lukewarm about Fallout: New Vegas, which I adore. Then again, he rightly recognizes the awesome majesty of Icepick Lodge’s games. So who can say.

  • http://www.quartertothree.com Tom Chick

    Malk, we can do dueling links all you want. Game Informer and Eurogamer loved Bulletstorm. 1up and Chris Kohler at Wired were more lukewarm. Except, uh, do I have to actually post the links? Okay, I concede. Sigh. Maybe I’ll head out tonight and pick up Bulletstorm anyway.

  • Some random dude from the internet

    Quintin is very positive in this RPS review for the same reason he was somewhat lost in Fallout New Vegas review. Bulletstorm probably provide enough quick enteirnament, so your hands are always busy, so you will not look behind the scenary, or ask for any deep.

    Ben Sones is probably the type of gamers that don’t mind the slow pace of New Vegas, and will look behind scenary and even under the carpet.

    Both reviews are useful, and represent different people tastes. People like Quintin will enjoy Bulletstorm, while people like Ben will have problems where Ben have problems with the game. And is posible to be a mix of Quins and Ben, and enjoy some parts of Bulletstorm, and hate others.

  • Telefrog

    I have to completely disagree with Ben Sones assessment of Bulletstorm. As I said in my forum post, it neatly fills the “meathead smart” area of my brain that allows me to enjoy dumb but fun action movies like Total Recall or Commando. The game is hilarious.

  • Ben Sones

    “Ben Sones is probably the type of gamers that don

  • Ben Sones

    Whoah, that was weird. Let’s try again:

    Re: Ben Sones is probably the type of gamers that don

  • Ben Sones

    Huh. Never mind, I guess. This comment UI seems to randomly cut my posts short. Maybe it’s a Chrome thing.

  • Mike Cathcart

    Ben Sones is the Candlejack of Quarter to

  • KeysE2S

    Other titles that we should all automatically love based on the aggregate of their critical reception:
    http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-kids-are-all-right
    http://www.metacritic.com/music/speak-now

  • malkav11

    Ben, I’m posting on Chrome. So I dunno, man.

  • http://www.quartertothree.com Tom Chick

    Ben, if you try to paste in text, you’ll often drag in a “curly quote” as an apostrophe. This freaks Word Press out and it cuts you off. Sorry about that.

  • Brooski

    ‘Sometimes the game presents you with QTE

  • Brooski

    ‘Sometimes the game presents you with QTE ‘shoot the target’ events that are so important, so vital that you not miss, that the game even aims for you. I swear I am not making that up.’

    It’s interesting how at a time when The Left is up in arms about threats to collective bargaining, it simultaneously rails against the implementation of collective targeting, which after all can only ensure that those players who have somehow been handicapped or oppressed in some way which would otherwise detract from their ability to finish a level would be able to enjoy the satisfaction of completing said level without having to base their completion solely on merit.

    ‘Like the environments, the game itself is unwaveringly linear and scripted. It underscores this by wrenching control of the game away from you constantly, to show you something important, or to show you something unimportant … It is less like playing a game, and more like acting out a part in a play.’

    I’m surprised at the introduction of values such as ‘important/unimportant’ to various game aspects at a time when it has become widely acknowledged that just such epithets were used to devalue many cultural signifiers. It would seems to me that The Left would be much more circumspect in evaluating the impact that one may assign to any given game experience in order to make it more personally meaningful, rather than straitjacketing it into a moral system which arbitrarily dismisses various elements as ‘unimportant,’ much as the victims of Wounded Knee saw their suffering lost to history until revisionist historians restored dignity to their own interpretation of events, independent of dominant societal appraisal turned to its own self-serving ends.

    Also, since when is playing a game superior to ‘acting out a part in a play?’ I defy any game reviewer to name one single game that is better than Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard.’ I know, you lose. Keep trying, losers.

    It’s also just sad that the off-handed reference to ‘heavy-handed railroading’ manages to disrespect the sacrifices of other railroads, such as the Underground Railroad, in bringing people to freedom. A freedom which Mr. Sones seems to be unable to grant to his readers, who would otherwise be free to enjoy rail shooters absent the tyranny of taste which is so typical of this Administration and its amen corner in the mainstream media.

  • Brooski

    The comments section really does not like double quotes. Liberals.

  • thebigJ_A

    What is.. what is going on? Why did that comment up there have quotes from this blog post parsed in with some wierd rant from Faux News, or whatever that was. What does “The Left” (capitals cuz it’s SCARY!! oogabooga!) have to do with an FPS??

  • http://www.quartertothree.com Tom Chick

    Mr. JA, allow me to introduce you to Brooski. He is to neoconservatives what Japanese soldiers lost in the jungles of the Philippines are to World War II.

  • Christien Murawski

    Here in this comments section we believe in the redistribution of quotes.

    -xtien

  • http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/OddjobXL Brian Rucker

    Some folks just dislike games packed with scripted linearity. That’s valid and a view I share. Doesn’t matter how “Woooo! Xtreme!” the rest of the animatronic ride is, this will sneak up into our craws and continually distract us.

  • Vorrin

    Hi, first time I see this website, came here through a link on RPS’ comments for this game in fact (whose review of this baffled me quite much).

    I much agree with your opinions, especially on the actual game being pretty much the same exact thing as the CoD parody they so brazenly released beforehand… even the skillshot system, doesn’t really add much difference as from ‘shoot all the little men here, here, and there’ the imperative becomes ‘shoot all the explodey stuff here, here and there (or do stuff with cacti)’.

  • http://hirejimessian.com Bad Kermit

    I’m glad I decided to wait until the price drops on this one. I played through the demo once and was already bored. It seems like a fun playthrough for $20, but $60? No thanks.