It's possible to play through these maps solo, although it will likely be more fun on launch day.Īll this good, clean, innately sadistic fun returns in the remaster, overseen by the newly independent People Can Fly and published by FPS experts Gearbox. Grinding levels unlocks suitably outré gear and emotes, allowing you to transform your initial bog-standard space-ops grunt into more of a flamingo killer. As well as the usual Skillshot opportunities, each map offers unique environmental kills - and using your leash to bring down an enormous bell with an organ-busting “DONG!” on the Villa map is endlessly satisfying - as well as special co-op Skillshots, such as pulling an enemy in half with two leashes. The original Bulletstorm's four-player online cooperative Horde-alike mode Anarchy returns, with you and up to three friends tackling waves of enemies in one of 12 bespoke mini-maps. There is an option to switch off Skillshot notifiers but seeing your killer combos visualised is half the fun. And being able to leash/boot/leash/boot the same enemy like a cruel yo-yo master simply never stopped being entertaining. The fact that both Hunt's leash and melee abilities activated a physics-defying slowdown on the target, granting you a tactical window to line up the perfect points-achieving Skillshot - a rump-targeted bullet spray, say, or kicking your foe into a cloud of explosive insects - proved that the emphasis was on flexibility rather than fidelity. These offensive abilities were clearly designed to be mixed and matched on the hoof: leash a bothersome enemy from afar to yank them, Scorpion-style, across the playspace to point-blank range, then perforate them with a shotgun blast or, alternatively, kick them into a nearby mutant cactus. But the main focus was creating sustained creative carnage, an extemporised process of aggressive elimination performed via whizz-bang weaponry, a multi-purpose energy whip known as a leash and, last but not least, a robust melee attack delivered via Hunt's hefty space boot. There was a solid, sometimes surprising campaign involving mutton-chopped antihero Grayson Hunt - a former galactic wetworks asset turned beery cosmic freelancer - embarking on a rescue and revenge mission on a ravaged former resort planet filled with Borderlands-ready bad dudes. Taking as much inspiration from Tony Hawk as Marcus Fenix, it coaxed players towards attempting inventive kills (Skillshots, in the game's parlance), combo-ing showboat executions to unlock the points necessary to access covetable upgrades and add-ons. That's a shame, because Bulletstorm was that rare sci-fi FPS that favoured fun'n'gun over run'n'gun. It is remembered as a cult curio, the game equivalent of a video nasty. Despite a handful of positive reviews, including a notable 9/10 from one highly respected outlet, Bulletstorm seemed to go off rather half-cocked. The brainchild of Polish developer People Can Fly (at the time majority-owned by Epic Games) it took the chunky imprimatur of the Unreal/Gears of War model and mutated it into something equally and impressively violent but a little more playful. ![]() The original Bulletstorm came out all guns blazing, literally, from publisher EA in early 2011. ![]() This seems particularly relevant when discussing Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, an unexpected but not unwelcome addition to the growing subgenre of deluxe FPS do-overs. ![]() So what, ideally, should be the purpose of a remaster (putting aside for a moment the fact that assets-jazzed rereleases give developers and publishers the chance to essentially claw back money for old code)? Should it be a curatorial exercise in refreshing established but ageing hits for state-of-the-art hardware - a victory lap, essentially? Or could remasters do more tangible good by offering a second chance to titles that failed to get their due first time round? Your various AI squadmates are rarely that effective but crucially don't slow you down. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was hardly in any danger of being lost in the mists of time, right? Its blockbusting original sales and cultural ubiquity ensuring it remained embedded in the minds and muscle memory of at least a generation of gamers. Late last year, when Modern Warfare Remastered was bundled in with Call of Duty Infinite Warfare - so tightly bundled, in fact, that it was clearly an attempt to bolt a hefty booster rocket onto premium sales - it raised the question of what deserves being preserved when it comes to video games. People Can Fly's cult sci-fi shooter - and booter, and whipper, and blower-upper - returns in an impressively lavish package.
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