Multiplayer Awesomeness with Bulletstorm

With four of us here at ScampLAN, it proved the perfect opportunity to try out some multiplayer Bulletstorm.

Anarchy Mode basically consists of setting up as many skillshots as possible between members of the team, to kill waves of enemies.  Solo skillshots apply as expected, but if two or more players work together to create the skillshot, it becomes a Team Skillshot, and earns more points.  This requires a little more communication.. or at least having players who care more about setting up skillshots than trying to get the most individually.. therefore, best played with friends 🙂

This was a lot of fun, with new skillshots being discovered during play.. such as Tug-O-War, for Leashing another player’s Leashed enemy.  This skillshot was apparently added at the request of the community, which I think is a good move on the part of the developer 🙂

(Screenshot from Ripten.com)

Some enemies appear with a specific Team Skillshot to achieve.. such as the Meatspin skillshot, which is earned by kicking the enemy into the rotating doors in the corner of the Grand Central map, or the Midnight Express, for kicking an enemy into the path of the train as it flies through the station.  These were harder to do as the enemy often appeared far away from the required location, but still worth going for based on points.

Echoes is the other multiplayer mode.. though this is more of a beat-your-friends’-highscore kind of mode.  Echoes are small sections from the campaign with plenty of enemies and loads of opportunities for skillshots.. the more skillshots, the more points.

As friends have already got decent scores, if I want to get to the top of our boards, every enemy needs to be taken out with a skillshot, and as many unique skillshots as possible, as only the first few uses get a high reward.  They’re all fairly quick to play through, though, so I should be able to fit them in somewhere! 🙂

Bulletstorm Completed!

As well as completing my cube skin, I also completed Bulletstorm!

The rest of the game turned out to be just as much fun as the first part.  The sniper was the next awesome toy to be placed in my hands.. with added bullet-steering abilities!  I loved how the enemies tried to dive out of the way as the bullet got near to them.. but there was no escape!

Heading through the dam section, and ultimately destroying it was awesome too!

After this I encountered the Maneaters.. huge carnivorous plants which caught human-sized snacks!  I was caught by surprise a few times.. they move quickly and you don’t have a lot of time to press the button to try and escape once caught.  After being eaten by a plant I endured some mocking from a friend.. I’m looking forward to seeing how he manages!

The boss fight at the end of this level took a while, killing me with spores on the first attempt.  The sliding move turned out to be very useful for getting away from attacks and quickly getting around the boss to catch all the vulnerable points.. eventually killing him off to earn the Weedkiller achievement 🙂

After this, and knowing we were about to catch up with Sarrano, I thought I was heading towards the end of the game, and ended up staying up far too late.. in the end I had to give up and sleep.  So for length of game, I was rather impressed..  I was also impressed with the variety in the levels and enemies, as well as the story allowing us to meet up with Sarrano but in a twist, not letting us actually fight him until later.

There were a few tougher sections.. or at least, parts of the game where I stuck for a little while.. one started with a miniboss in the centre, and other enemies around the room, then more and more enemies and minibosses arrived while I was fighting which led to a few restarts 😉

These were especially satisfying to get through, especially after rampaging through previous sections.

I’ve now started playing through on Hard.. so far it doesn’t seem all that much harder, but I am used to the weapons now, and know what to expect.  Next up has to be the multiplayer, though 🙂

When Bulletstorm was originally released there was a lot of complaining in the media, with some idiots trying to claim that people would become rapists after playing, because of bad language, the fact you are rewarded for shooting bad guys in the nuts, and so on.  I took pleasure in shooting my enemies in the nuts (I struggled to get the ‘Mercy’ skillshot as I was killing them off too quickly), whipping them into environmental hazards with the leash, and gagging them with my flail-gun, as well as being rather amused at the language.. do I now want to go outside and rape people?  No.  That’s because I can tell the difference between a game and reality.. those who go out and commit crimes like that are going to do it regardless.

The media also rolled out the usual irrelevant whinge about children being affected, by seeing the violence and wanting to copy it.. well, young children shouldn’t be given access to games rated for adults, and if they are, then you have to ask what else their parents let them get up to..