I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous when I fired up my copy of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition for the first time. After years of talking the game up to anyone that would listen, and sharing fond memories of the skillshot system, I was terrified I would discover that one of my favorite shooters from the previous console generation hadn’t aged well. But those fears were put to bed pretty quickly. I’m even thinking about finishing Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition a second time.
Bulletstorm is a first-person shooter that follows Grayson Hunt and Ishi Sato, the only surviving members of the mercenary squad known as Dead Echo. The story picks up several years after the team abandoned the Confederate Army, for reasons we’ll let you discover on your own, and sees Dead Echo’s last living members stranded on a strange and hostile world. Most of the game is spent in pursuit of Gen. Victor Sarrano, the foul-mouthed, sadistic military officer who commanded Dead Echo before the team went rogue. Bulletstorm also explores Grayson and Ishi’s souring friendship and the duo’s sordid past.
What sets Bulletstorm apart from its contemporaries, other than a penchant for vulgarity we haven’t seen in years, are its skillshots. The skillshot system rewards players bestows points on players for murdering Grayson’s enemies in new and increasingly violent ways. Points are used to purchase additional ammo and charged shots or increase Grayson’s carrying capacity. Some tasks are admittedly juvenile, like guiding a sniper round into an enemy’s testicles. But others, like bouncing an explosive 100-plus meters before killing an enemy, are pretty tough.
The rest of the Bulletstorm campaign is pretty much what you’d expect. Grayson and Ishi shoot, lasso and kick their way through one environment after another, brutally dispatching anyone (or anything) that stands between them and Gen. Serrano. There are a couple boss battles spread across the campaign, none of which are particularly memorable, but Bulletstorm tends to lean on hectic gunfights instead of one-on-one encounters. If you’ve played the game before, there won’t be any big surprises. The Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour DLC debuting with Full Clip Edition changes up some of the dialogue but don’t go expecting a surprise ending.
The good news, for longtime Bulletstorm fans, is that the skillshot system has aged well. It’s still incredibly fun to lasso an enemy into kicking distance, only to send them hurtling into an oversized cactus or a nest of twisted and broken metal bars, as it was when Bulletstorm hit PC and consoles in 2011. In fact, with the exception of some new Echoes -- one-off scenarios where players compete to see who can rack up the most points -- Bulletstorm is exactly as we left it in 2011. And People Can Fly even went a step above many of its competitors by bringing the game's multiplayer servers back online, giving players another chance to team up and slaughter a few dozen Skulls. But preserving everything from the original Bulletstorm means Full Clip Edition also maintains all of its shortcomings.
Sure, I'm still impressed by People Can Fly’s ability to bake skillshots directly into Bulletstorm’s story but the system instead remains woefully undercooked. A list of 131 unique kill shots might seem bountiful on paper but I managed to hit 120 on my first run through the campaign. And most can be completed minutes after you’ve gained access -- either by unlocking/upgrading a weapon or “discovering” enough killshots -- putting players in the irritating position of waiting for the game to tell them it’s OK to start experimenting with Bulletstorm’s arsenal again.
The story is similarly underwhelming. Grayson’s tale of revenge might mean something to us if the character was even remotely redeemable. But we’re starting to wonder if Hunt wasn’t the primary inspiration for Watch Dogs' Aiden Pearce, the only video game protagonist you’re more likely to root against. The worst part is that it really feels like someone(s) at People Can Fly was writing the Edgy Space Pirate dialogue of their dreams. It just makes it that much harder to like the game’s protagonist. But like we said, the story isn’t really the main draw here.
After years of railing against HD remasters and Definitive Edition repackagings, I feel a tad bit hypocritical for enjoying my time with Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition as much as I did. Sure, the game’s writing is bad enough to justify muting the dialogue and turning on your favorite album or podcast. And the setup for a sequel that never happened remains disappointing. But the skillshot system still speaks to me in a way that I can’t quite explain, even as someone whose interest in single-player first-person shooters has waned over the years. If you’re a diehard FPS fan looking for something new, or just someone who’d like to revisit Bulletstorm, I’d absolutely recommend adding Full Clip Edition to your collection.
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition heads to PS4, Xbox One and PC on April 7.
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