Bulletstorm

[Art Blade]

Something I want to tell you is that I saw that dinosaur the size of a sky scraper and had to fight it. We all have seen "bosses" in games that are big, bigger, and still bigger, but this one is probably the most impressive boss I've ever seen. There was one scene when I looked at a foot of him the size of a shopping mall. When I wanted to see his head, I had to move the mouse all the way down my pad, back to the top and down again, performing like a 90° change of view, almost looking straight up. That thing is SO big you can't help but think, "wow."  :) :-X

[Art Blade]

One thought about having to buy ammo:

You can buy ammo using experience points as currency you get from various skill shots and other things -- but there is ammo to be found for free in ammo crates and weapons dropped by dead enemies. You can also pick up weapons if you like, replacing one of two optional weapons (you have three weapons to carry around, two of which can be exchanged). Using drop kits which are kind of arms dealers and can be found after each chapter (story, a LOT of chapters, they are all brief) so they allow for stocking up to the max and upgrading weapons as well as changing weapons or buying special ammo used for "charged" shots, the second fire mode each weapon offers. Over time you'll collect more points than you can spend, so there is no need to worry about having to buy stuff. :)

One thing about the game as a program:

I don't understand why the game presents a black screen for up to a minute when you fire it up. At first it made me think it had crashed, checking the task manager to confirm but no, it is normal. One minute! How about a loading screen?! >:((

[Art Blade]

I'm through with SP :)

Roughly somewhat less than 20 hours of fun. Great game  :) :-X

As to replay value: I definitely want to replay it at least once, and perhaps one or two times more using a different difficulty level. Getting to know the game was fun and knowing it will be even more fun because it takes quite some time to get used to the unique way of fighting, like using the environment, the leash, the thumper (second fire mode of the leash), kicks and of course those many weapons.

And perhaps some MP.. should be fun if it is co-op :)

[Fiach]

There is no vs MP, only co-op mate, in vs players were over powered, which made it pretty frustrating from what I can gather.

I thought the game was good for about a third, I got a bit bored in the middle, the final third was pretty awesome. 20 hours though? I would have said half that, but I dont know if the game records the length of play time, so I cant confirm that.

Of course you can replay chapters, but you can only use the equipment you had while playing that chapter originally, you can also replay missions as "echoes", which are like time trials, you rack up enough points and you unlock the subsequent echoes.

You can also swap your weapons load out at the drop canisters.

As regards points, I finished with about 20k left over, it would have been nice to bring these to a new game in some way or other.

The Thumper was pretty awesome, I would have been lost in the last section, if I didnt have it, it really turned it into easy mode though.

Did you let the credits roll to the end Art?, Theres a nice bit of dialogue there :)

Anyway, glad you has so much fun, its short, but incredibly sweet :)

[Art Blade]

yes, I read the credits to the end and listened to that brief conversation.. hehe  :-D No records of the SP game time, just guessing from when I installed the game to when I finished the SP campaign.

When I read co-op before actually playing MP I thought it was about playing the SP story with a couple of peeps (like in Quake II).

I have now played MP for a couple of hours and it was fun.. for three reasons:

1) People can't chat. (Except they use voice chat) No time for typing.. and no kiddish comments.
2) Co-op only works if you w@&k together, as soon as some clowns try soloing it out, the entire team doesn't make it. So they do cooperate.
3) The game and its "skill shots" is massive fun  :-()

I was a little surprised when I noticed that after a couple of hours I was able to survive until wave 11 and the teams usually croaked at wave 12 (each "party" in a co-op game consists of four random players vs AI advancing in waves, not unlike Borderlands and Mad Moxxi's Underdome).

I was about as surprised to find me in the upper bit of the world rankings, currently I'm lvl 22 and listed at around 4,000 out of around 35,000 players. :)

[Fiach]

Gratz mate, well done :)

[fragger]

Nice job, Art! Both your ranking and your review :-X

1) People can't chat. (Except they use voice chat) No time for typing.. and no kiddish comments.
2) Co-op only works if you w%&k together, as soon as some clowns try soloing it out, the entire team doesn't make it. So they do cooperate.

1) That's a plus right there ;D
2) That's how co-op should always be IMHO :-X

[Art Blade]

cheers, peeps :)


One thought about the technical aspect of MP:

It uses GFWL which uses the network parameters taken from windows and that means it apparently doesn't update the data when you get disconnected for some reason. If the game is still running you can use alt+tab and fix your connection and you can use alt+tab to get back into the game (never crashed using alt+tab, actually the entire time it only crashed once) but even if you are reconnected, the game (no, GFWL..) doesn't take notice  >:(

Now the nasty bit: If you had to reconnect to your ISP and if you are using a dynamic IP (no idea what happens with a static IP) the game claims that there is a network error. The only solution is to quit the game and restart, which takes some time obviously. For some reason GFWL keeps crashing my connection, I had countless lost connections and they were so bad every time I had to unplug the network cable and stick it back into my PC which of course made me angry to a point I actually cursed aloud. I have never had any problems with my network hardware but for reasons unknown the GFWL software  keeps screwing up my network hardware. I remember I had the same issues back in the day of FUEL which also uses GFWL. A complete system restart (cold reboot) seemed to fix the issue for a while but hell, I hate it.  >:((

[Art Blade]

Hehe, played some more MP (yes.. ME  ??? ) and so far no network troubles.. I noticed, because I quickly climbed up in ranks:

Now I'm Level 32 ("Veteran") and listed in those World Rankings (still around 35,000 players) sorted by Kills, # 1649, and Skill points # 2441 :)

This game is so much fun :-()

[Art Blade]

make that Level 35 (veteran) and Ranking Kills # 1261 and Skill points # 1932 out of 35,552 players  >:D

[Art Blade]

Scratch that.  ;D

Now Level 37 "Captain" and rankings # 1,031 at kills and # 1,569 at skill points out of 35,578 players (so the number of players is increasing :) )

Bed time  :-\\ ;)

[Art Blade]

Well, I keep climbing up and keep having fun :)

This game is so dependent on what the rest of the "party" (team) does that it is bothersome if one or more team mates treat it as if it was a simple deathmatch of any given simple shooter. They waste points needed to win a wave rendering those who want to win and advance helpless. If I realise that they keep doing it (playing on their own) I just leave the match and let the game find another random match.

Sometimes a random team works together rather quickly and it is fun to see how they assist one another, winning wave after wave with a lot more points than needed.. great games, those :)

[fragger]

Some people don't have much of a clue when it comes to any kind of team effort, do they? ::)

Now Level 37 "Captain" and rankings # 1,031 at kills and # 1,569 at skill points out of 35,578 players (so the number of players is increasing :) )

The way you're going, the number of players is going to start decreasing as you bump 'em all off :-()

Glad you're having so much fun with it, mate :-X

[Art Blade]

Actually I'm now Level 46 "Spec Ops" and my ranking is around 500 regarding kills and around 780 regarding skills.. out of now 36,000 players :)

Some players just don't (yet) have a clue about the game's principles and the result is that they are not producing a good score together with their team. If the entire team (well, except yourself) is like that, then it cannot w@&k. Then you are lucky if you get past the third wave whereas with good team players you get beyond wave 15 or higher.. that is my maximum wave so far. :)

[Art Blade]

Hehe, going to do something you should avoid, quoting yourself  :-()

I had abandoned multiplayer games because of two things: Amateurs taking it too seriously and idiots who called experts "noob/cheater" and at the time managed to blow the game by unfair and stupid gaming for anyone who was having fun. Those games that were team based usually consisted of the former type and FFA DM (free for all death match) games of the latter type. Now with Bulletstorm there is no chat ( ^-^ ) so no calling names and there is only one team based MP mode which in a way requires all four team mates to assist one another or everyone fails. That may be the only MP shooter I'll play for a while because either you're having fun together or you just leave ;D You can't admire the landscape as the game is Human vs AI, so the AI will always be after you..  ;)

This was in another topic but should be here as well.

Apparently the upper ranks in the world ranking consist of those players who do the best job in a team which means playing together with them will increase the fun factor and if you can catch up with them it will make you part of a winning team so you may share victory and a happy feeling of having played well.

I try to get as high as possible in ranks (currently I am a level 54 "Black Ops" listed as # 268 for kills and # 364 for skill points, out of 36,834 players) looking for good players who w@&k well together as a team and I was able to invite people I had met before to join me for a game and I was also invited to join a game.

The coolest experience of team play I have ever had coming up now:

We (four humans) had one last enemy (AI) which was tagged (blue column reaching to the sky indicating his position) and those blue targets have a text hovering above them telling you what to do with them, a team goal which grants a high score if you manage. We had to feed him to a fly trap (a giant plant, it's a part of the map) but here comes the twist: The map is basically shaped like a doughnut; we and that enemy were grouped together on one end of the loop and the fly trap was on the opposite site of the hole which was located at the centre of the map so we needed to get him across the map around the hole in the middle (you can't fall in accidentally) and only then kick him into the fly trap. If anyone was a little too trigger-happy we would fail.. and there was no chat and at that time no voice chat either going on so there was no way of communication.. I was curious and hoping no one would kill him and I knew enemies try to home in on you so there was a chance to sucker him into following us and then having us kill him with a fly trap..

I started to walk towards that fly trap and so did everyone else.. no shooting (except the enemy shooting at us) and we all walked slowly so he kept trying to catch up with us..  ??? Took some time and we actually made him follow us to the final destination and then one of us kicked him towards that fly trap and another guy gave him another kick to adjust his flight path towards the fly trap.. and we managed!!  ??? ^+-+ :-X

THAT was great and intelligent team play, I hope to see that more often :) :-X

[PZ]

Were you a professional gamer, Art?  You seem to know lots about the infrastructure.

[Art Blade]

Let me put it this way: I wasn't a pro myself but occasionally was invited to play with pros during their training matches and I did play world league games for some time. I was ranked #1 of the world a couple of days once and used to rank in the top 10 out of say 250,000 players for a couple of months. Then it was too bothersome and I went back to casual gaming. :)

[PZ]

Cool - we have a famous gamer in our membership  :-X

[Art Blade]

That's history, I am just a regular guy  :)

[fragger]

No wonder you do so well at gaming, Art! Remind me never to pick a cyber-fight with you :-D

I used to w@&k with a pro gamer years ago in my IT days. I called him "5 by 5" because he was five feet tall and five feet wide - the most spherical human being I've ever seen. When he sat down at his desk his office chair would just disappear :-() But man, could that guy game! We used to have Quake DMs in the office after w@&k on Fridays and he was unbeatable. Unfortunately he was also loud and obnoxious, which is why I never felt terribly guilty about bestowing that derogatory honorific upon him. But obesity is clearly no handicap in cyberspace!

[Art Blade]

Hehehe, I'm the total opposite of that bloke.. I'm fit and slim and not loud and all that :)

However, I've just finished playing with a high ranking player I had noticed and played with before. We agreed to play as a team of two (rather than four) and make it a private match because people who had joined us weren't team playing (maybe because they don't understand the scoring system). So I hosted the game and we played his favourite map until wave 12 and we only stopped because it is late now and we both need some sleep (eventually)  :-()

Each wave we scored so abundantly that right now I've levelled up to 56 "Echo" and now my rank is for kills # 243 and for skill points # 311 out of 36,916 players. Funny thing, he and I together play better than a team of four despite the fact that we have to deal with the same amount of enemies  ^-^ Now we need a third and a fourth guy who play team oriented.. man, then things will look really good  ;D

[PZ]

Go, Art, go!  :-X  ;)

[Art Blade]

The player I mentioned before, Binnatics, gave me some tips regarding weapon loadout and upgrades and we had planned to team up again today. So I was really looking forward to this night's game and indeed it was as good as I had hoped: Binnatics and I played a private match on that "doughnut" map (actually it's called Dead Rock).

After one or two waves we had warmed up and played from fixed positions across the "hole" (actually there's a tornado in that hole) and the goal was simple: One player kicks a nearby enemy towards the tornado hole and the other player leashes (whips out an energy string) that same enemy and pulls it into the tornado. That is a simple concept but of course it's not only just that, the map has a lot of obstacles and paths and stuff so it's not just a plain field. There are sometimes hordes of enemies swarming the map, most of the time they home on in on one player who is then really busy to keep them off his neck  >:D

So while he kicks at them for his life the other player pulls those temporarily incapacitated and floating enemies out of the air and into something that kills them. As long as one enemy had contact with two players before he dies the score doubles ("team score"). If you manage to pull off some "skill shots" that are defined (kind of a set of rules) you get a nice score and double it because you played it as a team. Then there are mini bosses who are basically the only enemies you need to shoot at (they're tough and you can't kick or leash them) but we went through them like a hot knife through butter  :-D

Remember I told you how those random teams of four players I had played in usually didn't make it past wave 12? Now just the two of us had no problems at all to go up to wave 17 and we only stopped because he had to go to bed (he's got to w%&k tomorrow). We did so well that both of us made a jump in the world ranking :)

I had played a bit without my team mate, too (I played a different map alone, "team of myself" hehe, and was able to get to wave 13 before I got bored). Now I'm a level 60 "Echo" and my ranking for kills is #150 and # 176 for skill points, out of currently 37,365 players.

Man, if we could find one or perhaps two more players who play like that and assist one another.. it would be a dream team  :)

[Art Blade]

Found a good Russian team player in a random team, so we started a private match.. Now I'm level 62 Echo and kill ranking # 126 and skill points # 147. And I'm tired now  ^+-+

[PZ]

I'm tired just reading that!  ;)