Bullshot
Bullshot is a slangish term for videogame marketing material that is unrepresentative of the actual game. Why is this game called “Bullshot”? I dunno. Maybe it’s because you play as a bull that shoots people in a supposedly self-aware videogame. Maybe it’s the other way around. Didn’t ask.
I say people, but I actually have no idea who they are, they could be souls of all the broccoli you didn’t eat as a kid rotting in hell for all I know. The game caters heavily towards 90′s gaming nostalgia, which comes with being light on exposition and an obligatory screen filter, which is CRT as default. Kudos on one hand - to take the nineties, propably the most ridiculed decade of the 20th century pop culture, and just run with it is a bald move. It’s more Sega, Playstation and PC than Nintendo, the oscar bait of the indie game scene. On the other hand, the market isn’t exactly starving for nostalgic throwbacks, so the game is not so much exploring uncharted territories as just nervously looking outside the fence of it’s comfort zone.
And then there’s the whole “being good” thing, and sadly Bullshot didn’t stick the landing in this category. I don’t want to harp on the game too much, because it did become a top seller on Steam at the time of release and was reviewed well by the community, so my words have as much effect on reality as a butterfly flapping it’s wings in the night. It’s heart also seems to be in the right place, but that’s as much positivity as I can muster up here, as the execution is simply lacking.
The name certainly bites the game on the ass and obtains an ironic meaning. The understanding of retro aesthetics here is only superficial, as the presentation becomes a mush of a variety of things, from Doom and Duke Nukem to Starcraft of all things. The game feel is barely there - the character slides around the level without any sense of momentum, which is odd, since he is one chunky fellow. It also lacks the punch of shooters it’s supposed to envoke - there’s no over-the-top scream upon death, no meaty explosions or visual feedback, the enemies being shot make this farting sound that I guess is supposed to be blood splattering. And what we have instead is a game so brown you can barely see bullets, so underanimated you can barely tell what or even know if something is hitting you, and with the most unfitting soundrack, most reminiscent of Starcraft, where it was designed for you to make brainy strategic decisions, not make you blood rushing with adrenalin.
The final testament to the name is gameplay itself. Once you discover a go-to-cover button, the game throws it’s retro veil off and shows itself for what it truly is - a modern stop’n’pop cover shooter demade into 2D. You can go into cover anywhere, which means you don’t really have to mind your surroundings. Only melee attacks can hurt you in cover, but the hero instakills common enemies nearby automatically, so you don’t have to worry about that. Once you discover the button, the game becomes a slog. You stand there, waiting for a window, pop a few shots, rinse and repeat. The bosses are a whole other can of worms though. Because of lackluster design, their attacks are undertelegraphed, so learning their patterns and effectively countering them will not be easy or interesting for that matter.
This game is something I’d rather see remain on Newgrounds, there it could be considered great work. Steam store, I believe, can offer much better stuff.
