From developers People Can Fly and Epic Games comes Bulletstorm, an action packed, sinfully crude and brutal game that will leave you wanting more after each play. Similar to the Gears of War Trilogy (Epic Games biggest game franchise), it has the blood, the guts and butt ugly enemies, the only difference is that it's a hell of a lot brighter, and will have you in stitches with the hilarious crude dialogue.

Gameplay:

Set in a few years, well the 26th century to be precise, you play the character of Grayson Hunt who is a part of a Black Ops team - Dead Echo, part of the secret army which is formed to protect the confederation of planets. Dead Echo are tricked by their commanding officer - General Sorrano, into killing innocent civilians, who they were told were drug dealers and mass murderers.

The game fast forwards a few years to the crash landing of Graysons The game is set on the planet of Stygia where you end up after crash landing after a bit of a drinking binge which involves Grayson ramming his ship into General Sorrano's. Your goal is to get off Stygia as soon as possible, but this isn't an easy task as you come across a number of challenging enemies including Sorrano's men and some of the rather unpleasant inhabitants of Stygia. You also come across new characters, some of which you may hate, some of which you may like. I won't say why, but I personally loved the mix of characters in game.

When coming up against enemies you have can use a mixture of weapons and combat moves such as kicking and sliding, it's a brilliant mixture if you ask me. It's something a little different than normal first person shooter games where you can only shoot. You can boot your enemies, shoot at them, slide into them causing them to fly up into the air or use your leash to grab a hold of them, pull them closer where you can either boot them back up into the air or shoot the crap out of them. In game these combos are called skill shots, and you unlock new skill shots with every new weapon you unlock.

You unlock new weapons and upgrades by earning the skill shots which are the "currency" needed at drop kits which are scattered throughout the game. You leache onto the dropkit and it opens up a list of menus enabling you to choose new weapons or upgrade the weapons you already have. You can also check what skill shots you have completed and have a look at what you need to do in order to complete new ones, some are easy and you will do without even trying, however there are some pretty tricky ones even I haven't got yet and I've spent a while on the game. Your hard work and efforts will be rewarded as the trickier the skill shot the more points you will get get enabling you to buy more upgrades and ammo.

The campaign is great to play through, the levels build up and fit into place nicely and the story progresses really well. It took me around 6 hours or so if I remember rightly to complete the campaign on Normal, I'm about half way through completing it on the hardest difficulty, it's certainly proving quite difficult in parts.

Echo is a separate game mode but is still similar to the main campaign, you aren't going for the story it is just the basic objective to earn as many skill points as possible throughout the level and do it in the quickest time. The more skill shots you do and the quicker the time the more stars you will be rewarded with at the end of the level. However, it isn't the full level you will be playing it is just a section of the original level which you need to play through.

Anarchy Mode is similar to Horde on Gears of War and Firefight on Halo ODST, you fight off hordes of ugly brutes in ever increasing levels. You have your full arsenal of weapons and your leash available through the dropkits at the start of each round, you can play anarchy online with up to 3 other players. It's a great addition to the game but does get a little repetitive after a while. You can upgrade your weapons and leash as usual through the dropkits, and each level will increase in difficulty and require you to reach a target score if you fail to do so then you will have to restart the level. You earn XP throughout each level, which will rank you up enabling you to unlock new items for your character in Anarchy mode.

Graphics:

Stunning colourful and bright graphics are the main feature here, although the only thing I'd have to say is the lip syncing in cut scenes is pretty terrible, I'm not sure why this is but it's quite sloppy. Everything else graphically about the game is brilliant. It's like a cross between Gears of War and Borderlands for me, bright colourful, and brutal as sin. Arms, legs and various other body parts fly all over the screen as you plough your way through numerous enemies, I personally love the over the top-ness of the graphics in these parts of the game.

Sounds:

Great soundtrack which I expected really from the makers of Gears of War, not as moving as Gears but still as awesome. The in game sounds fit into place nicely and sound great, the best sounds for me is the characters and the dialogue. Grayson - voiced by Steven Blum who is a pretty familar voice in the video gaming industry, fans of Call of Duty will recognise his voice acting from World at War and Black Ops as he plays the character Tank Dempsey who is one of the soldiers fighting against the Nazi Zombie horde. The humour he brought to Tank Dempsey's character in Call of Duty is brought forward and enlarged somewhat making the character of Grayson absolutely hilarious.

Longevity:

The campaign itself takes a few hours to complete, it's not overly tricky on the normal setting, but there are some parts that may prove slightly tricky, the best way to play it is on hard or above for a real challenge. The longevity is definitely there though, with online multiplayer in Anarchy mode, Echo's and with downloadable content already available and more on the way which extends the gameplay there is hours of play to be had on Bulletstorm.

Downloadable Content:

There is a fair bit of downloadable content planned for Bulletstorm, the first downloadable content pack is available already on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and I'm assuming it is also available online and the Playstation Network (when it's back up and running ha-ha!). The first DLC Pack cost me 800 Microsoft points which is probably around £6.50, the pack features new echo levels and new levels for Anarchy Mode. There is more downloadable content planned for the future, hopefully with new multiplayer game types.

Overall:

The game has been given a bashing from some critics and even news stations in the US because of the sexual innuendos, the brutality and the crudeness of the game. For me this has totally been blown out of proportion and I think that the crude humour and sexual innuendos is well suited to the game and makes the dialogue and relationships between the games characters unique and highly entertaining. The game is rated an 18 so I personally don't see what all the fuss is about there are games on the market a hell of a lot more crude and brutal than this.

The only downside for me is that there is currently only one mode of online play available and that is Anarchy. If they introduced more game types like objective based games or a Team Deathmatch style game I would spend more time online.

I'd recommend this game to geeks who love games like Gears of War and Call of Duty, or for people who like their games bloody, brutal and grim with a dash of humour. Obviously the game is a bit too violent and "naughty" for younger players, but I'm sure that a lot of parents out there still let their kids play these kind of games anyway without even looking at what the game has in it first. tut tut! ha-ha!