Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition Review

Introduction
Bulletstorm is a very small First-person shooter game that tries to put Duke Nukem into the shoes of Grayson Hunt but fails in every aspect. I don’t know how anyone came up with this crazy idea and thought this would work well. This is purely a marketing stunt to use the Duke Nukem IP instead of making a new Duke Nukem game. There is not even a mention of Grayson Hunt or where he actually is, is he now in Duke Nukem’s shoes? Duke Nukem also acts as a very different persona instead of his usual behavior. What makes things worse is that the other characters don’t even know that he is Duke Nukem!

The other problem with this game is that everyone should be dead at least 10 times over, the characters in the game survive a crashing spaceship, a crashing dam, an elevator shot into space, and then crashing and much more! If a spaceship ceiling crashes and falls on my head I would be dead or at least need medical attention. The game even lacks a real end game boss fight, all you have to do is push three buttons to achieve victory, hooray! Is that why I saved all my ammo? The game has some good points like the points that you gain for killing enemies, this is fun to explore and try out.

What did I think of Bulletstorm duke Nukem edition before playing?
It has been a while since I bought this game, I even pre-ordered it! The graphics look great and they advertised with Duke Nukem, everything that has Duke Nukem must bel be pre-ordered!
The skill points system sounded like a great idea, you get a good idea of what the game offers you before playing.
The story sounded really weak but a first-person shooter is all about killing enemies!

I rate Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition before playing with a 7.0
The game looked great before buying and pre-ordering, it looks very attractive and the idea of scoring points sound great.

Story
Duke Nukem finds himself in the shoes of Grayson hunt but he acts like a completely different person, when another ship attacks Duke Nukem decides to attack it. (how can he even know what is on board of that ship)? After an intense fight, Duke Nukem’s ship crashes on the strange planet below. For some reason, almost everyone has no injuries except for one person but he gets patched up with some robot parts.
Can you help Duke Nukem escape the strange planet and save your crewmates?

I rate the Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition story with a 4.0
The story is incredibly weak and badly written, there is also no additional story to get Duke Nukem back to his own place or even a simple explanation of why he is there. The story is not enjoyable and completely unrealistic. They should have never put Duke Nukem in this story. If I would have to rate it with Grayson Hunt in the main role, I would have rated the story higher. The story is also very short, I was able to beat the game on normal mode in about four to five hours. I played it on very hard because the game was very easy. This increased my playtime from about four hours to seven hours. I managed to finish the game in one day.

Gameplay
The gameplay is a little bit different compared to other first-person shooters, you will get a lasso that is called a leash. You can pull enemies towards you and then kick them away, repeat this to kill many enemies without using bullets. Some of the enemies are to fast to grab with your leash.
You will get points depending on how you kill enemies, killing them in special ways will gain you more points. These points can be spent when you arrive at a drop kit, these drop kits act as a shop. You can spend your points to buy new ammo or special charges for your gun and your leash. When you get far enough into the story you will also be able to buy new weapons and upgrades for your weapons. The enemies will barely drop any ammo, this means that you will need to gain loads of points to buy new ammo. Some of the kills are very weird and hard to find out, I accidentally burned a behind of an enemy which gave me a lot of points!  The route that you need to follow is very linear and you will reach the end before you know it. I advise you to spend all your ammo since there is no final boss fight. You can only carry three weapons and not four for some unknown reason, you can swap your weapons at the drop kit.

You can find robots that look like vacuum cleaners, these are newsbots and you can destroy them for a whopping 500 points. You can try to collect them all along with bottles that are hidden in each level. Another great addition is that you can steer your sniper bullet. There is always a non-playable character that is tagging along with you, this function annoyed me very much. For certain missions, I like that there are non-playable characters to help you but the whole game feels like overkill. There is an extra mode that is called overkill, in this mode you have access to all your weapons at the same time. Completing all different skilled shots for one weapon will grant you infinite ammo.

I rate the gameplay of Bulletstorm Duke Nuke Edition with a 6.5.
You won’t even notice that you are playing with Duke Nukem as most of the popular Duke Nukem lines have been removed. The gameplay has some different aspects compared to other first-person shooters but it lacks a final boss fight or even a challenge, the game was way to easy on very hard. I was surprised there was no extra modus after clearing the very hard difficulty.

Sound and Graphics
The graphics look stunning and they did a very good job, the kills look good on screen. The graphics are the strongest point of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition.
The sound and sound effects are mediocre at best and could have used an extra touch. The voice acting is good but it is ruined by using Duke Nukem in the story, it completely makes no sense and only leaves you confused.

I rate the sound and graphics of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition with a 6.0
The graphics are stunning but the sound, sound effects, and voice acting drag down this rating by a lot. The story got so confusing by the voice acting that I was literally scratching my head. The non-playable characters also kept calling Duke Nukem by the name of Gray instead of his real name.

What did I think of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition after playing?
I was really bummed out with how short this game is, in my eyes, they abused the Duke Nukem IP for more sales.
The story does not even get adjusted for Duke Nukem and the other characters in the story don’t even see him as Duke Nukem.
I see many options that they could have done that would have been better than making this abomination that they call a game.
The gameplay is fun but only for a short bit, it quickly gets boring and the story in the game does not get me riling to explore the game further.

I rate Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition after playing with a 4.5.
The game lacks in many ways, they could have done so much with Duke Nukem without changing him completely.
One of the options would have been that everyone sees him as Duke Nukem and they decide to together look for Grayson Hunt while trying to escape the planet.
Giving Duke Nukem Flashbacks of Grayson Hunt was also an extremely bad move.

My personal rating of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition
I disliked this game a lot and I was glad that completed it within one day, the developers made a lot of mistakes with including Duke Nukem into this game.
I tried to be very positive while playing the game but it was really hard to do.

My personal rating of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition is a 3.0

Pros and Cons

Pros
– The point system is a good idea, killing enemies in special or unique ways gives you more points

Cons
– There is no final boss fight
– The story is completely broken by including Duke Nukem into it.
– The game is very short
– The characters are immortal in the cut-scenes, Getting ejected from a spaceship in orbit? No problem, we are not even bruised or got a scratch from falling!
– The game is not challenging at all, on normal mode, you are an immortal god.
– You will always have a non-playable character following you around, they also get in your way which can lead to your demise.

I would not recommend Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition to anyone, especially not to Duke Nukem fans. If you want to play this game I would recommend the normal version with Grayson hunt.
The final rating of Bulletstorm Duke Nukem Edition is…drumroll…

5.6

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I hope you liked reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!