If you've read my review for Bulletstorm (it's published on this fine website which I write for these days) you'll know I had a lot of fun with the game. If you haven't, I'll fill you in: I had a lot of fun with the game. It taught a very, very old dog some new tricks and put some life into a genre which is standing on its very last legs of originality. In fact, there was so much focus on blasting fools to kingdom come that there was very little room for story - and that was okay. As it happens, I don't really want justification for shooting someone in the posterior and being rewarded for it, or anything to signify that they are a thinking, feeling human being for that matter.
A lot of people, ie. everyone who touched te game, had a problem with the ending, for various reasons. This was mostly because of the suitably ballsy approach it had to the sales of the game by leaving no closure whatsoever and leaving it all up to a sequel - a brave move indeed, though understandably frustrating. However, my issue was related to the matter mentioned above; as in the last half an hour or so, the game suddenly gets almost totally emasculated, as if it took a giant kick in the 'nads by the reality of the situation, the reality which I had very much enjoyed avoiding.
Imagine a game where you shoot rabbits on a farm. Rabbits are the death of farms, breeding like crazy, eating and ruining crops, and using the world as their toilet. I'd be pretty happy taking a double barrel to the darn critters, but imagine if right at the end you are suddenly shown all their cute little babies, and reminded about how you took away cute little Bugs here's mummy and daddy. This is pretty much what Bulletstorm mysteriously feels the need to do at its conclusion. I felt no reserve about wasting endless hordes of screaming maniacs, brains melted due to radiation poisoning or some other absurd narrative construction, but when you are at last facing real humans, it suddenly wasn't so satisfying being given extra points for aiming a sniper bullet right into his reproductive organs. They aren't even evil humans, in fact, they are in the exact same situation as Grayson Hunt, the protagonist, was just a few years before - misguided and manipulated by the tyrannical General Serrano. The kind general even spells it out for you, shouting over the speakers about the 'good men you just killed' as you blow them to oblivion, bringing in a moral dilemma that you have no choice in choosing the bad way out of.
It's not that I'm against being forced to feel guilty in games, but this just isn't the right title to do it in. In GTA IV, I grudgingly kill off oncoming police forces knowing in context of Niko's story of a downward spiral into a world of crime it makes sense for there to be bloodshed of the innocent. I know the man doesn't feel good about what he's doing, but he's reluctant and desperate. In Bulletstorm, Grayson is still happily shouting dick jokes at his victims as he tears them apart, knowing full well not a decade ago they would have been his teammates, because that's the sort of game it is, and it makes sense against the right enemies. Instead, it felt like I had come to see The Mechanic and ended up seeing Apocalypse Now. Don't try and make me feel, Bulletstorm. I'm not here for your poor lessons in humanity, I'm here for you to show me how I can kill a mindless freak using only my foot and a giant cactus or a hotdog stand.
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