What are ya waitin for...Christmas?

The Switch port of Bulletstorm announced during PAX East has stealthily appeared on the Nintendo eShop today. A compilation of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition and its "Duke Nukem's Bulletstorm Tour" DLC, this port comes in at $29.99 and requires 9.4 GB of storage. It??'ll likely contain the same visual makeover that the PS4/??Xbox One ports had, just at a lower resolution.

That's fine, too, because Bulletstorm is a great game. While I thought the $60 price tag on the remaster was a bit much, it's definitely not a game you should overlook. The addition of Duke Nukem kind of detracts from the experience with how lazy it comes off, but not having to pay extra for the ex-King is fine. I honestly wouldn't both?er playing with him, though.

Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition now available [Gematsu]

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Duke of Switch Edition

Bulletstorm's over-the-top, combo-chaining, explosive, obscene action is coming to a new platform in a few months. One of the first proper announcements at Gearbox's PAX East panel is that Bulletstorm is being ported to Switch.

This version is dubbed the Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition. It's presumably the Full Clip remast??er that released in 2017, which was complete with a cameo from Duke Nukem. We'll find out more in the very near future.

The reason we have to find out more details soon is because Bulletstorm on Switch launches sometime this summer. In just a few months, you'll have all the ridiculousness of Bulletstorm on the go.

The post Bulletstorm is launching on Switch this summer appeared first on Destructoid.

Yakuzin for a bruisin!

That leak from earlier in the month was correct! Yakuza Kiwami and Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition will be headling November's PlayStation Plus free games. Both are well worth checking out, especially at the low price of free. I'd suggest not even bothering with the Duke Nukem content in Bulletstorm, but definitely play the main game and actually populate the damn servers so people can ??properly co-op.

For last gen folks, you'll be able to nab the Arkedo Series bundle (which includes JUMP, SWAP, and PIXEL) and the Jackbox Party Pack 2. Vita owners will get two cross-buy enabled games in the form of Burly Men At Sea and Roundabout. Those may not be as high profi??le as the PS4 offerings, but you can't compl??ain about this list.

• Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition - PS4
• Yakuza Kiwami - PS4
• Arkedo Series - PS3
• Jackbox Party Pack 2 - PS3
• Burly Men At Sea - Vita (Cross-buy with PS4)
• Roundabout - Vita (Cross-buy with PS4)

PlayStation Plus: Free Games for November 2018 [PlayStation Blog]

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The King is dead, long live the king

When it was announced back in 2010 that Gearbox would acquire and finish Duke Nukem Forever, people let out a sigh of relief. Gearbox had a great track record of excellent first-person shooter games and had recently released Borderlands to critical and commerci??al acclaim. ??There was no way gaming’s longest running joke was going to be bad.

Despite six years having passed since then, people still look at Duke Nukem Forever with a mix of derision and disgust. It was a mashup of old-school design philosophy with new-school mechanics alongside poorly constructed levels and some questionable humor. It brought up the debate of whether or not Duke Nukem, as a character, had any relev?ance in the m??odern world.

Since Forever, Duke hasn’t starred in any new adventures. We’ve seen re-releases of the eternal classic Duke Nukem 3D, but it seems like Gearbox is either ashamed of i?ts past or has no idea how to acclimatize ??Duke to fit modern sensibilities. Duke is a relic of a bygone era where being politically correct wasn’t a priority, so most of what he utters is offensive today.

Bulletstorm, though, was a game that was offensive to everyone. You have men fighting alongside a woman who is just as much of a badass as the main character and even dishes out the same kind of insu?lts. You have insults based not on race, but on pent up anger and self-reflective hatred. Main character? Grayson Hunt is on a quest for redemption and he lashes out because of his own perceived failures.

Putting Duke Nukem into that kind of story role could have been the shot in the arm that the character needed. Most of Duke’s personality centers around his own inflated ego, so having him riff with other characters that are just as headstrong could have been an introspective journey that brought out something new within him. Instead, Gearbox lazily shat him into Bulletstorm without much consideration as to why.

To their credit, Gearbox never advertised Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour as a transformation of the game. While they did vaguely state that the game had a “re-recorded script and brand-new lines,” there was never a mention of any new content or even acknowledgement that Duke existed within the universe Bulletstorm is set in. Still, this could have been a chance to give longti?me fans something more than just a stupid bonus on a totally unrelated game.

The worst offender is just the lack of care taken with integrating Duke into the regular game. While all of Grayson’s lines are re-dubbed, the lip syncing on Duke’s character model is not. In the opening scenes, you’ll see Duke muttering a few choice words with his lips then continuing to move like some awful Hollywood dub job. They don’t even bother to change the animations, having Duke move his arms a??nd point to things without mentioning them.

All of the characters from Bulletstorm have their dialog remain untouched, so Ishi and Trishka will still refer to Duke as Grayson. While this might be initially funny (with Duke asking, “Who the hell is Grayson?”), it becomes a big problem later down the line. Like I said, Duke has a huge ego, ?so he would never stand for not being addressed by his actual name.

Then there is just the g??eneral delivery that Jon St. John (Duke’s longtime voice actor) brings to the table. This has to be the sloppiest I’ve ever heard Duke sound. Even my sister, who has a huge fondness of Duke from the ‘90s, was baffled that this didn’t really sound like The King. I know Mr. St. John has aged, but I’ve met the man in person and he can still deliver the old lines. I think he just truly didn’t care or felt disrespected that Gearbox wasn’t doing something else with the character.

Really, why was Duke even placed into Bulletstorm? I think that can be answered quite easily: pre-order culture. Gearbox doesn’t give a crap about what happens with Duke Nukem. This company shut down a fan-made free remake of Duke Nukem 3D seemi??ngly because it would have upstaged their lazy port of the game from last year. No, they just wanted some incentive to ge??t people blindly dropping money on their recently acquired intellectual property.

Pre-order culture has become a massive problem in mainstream triple-A gaming. We see sometimes significant content being gated off for people who don’t take leaps of faith before a title is even released. This has led to tremendous flops like Deus Ex having an "augment your pre-order" campaign or retailers getting exclusive content for specific games to incentivize people to sh?op at their outlet.

We’re also in an era where nostalgia is being readily milked by companies to earn profits. Take a look at the recently released Power Rangers film for further proof. No one was clamoring for another feature length Power Rangers film, let alone another damned reboot of a "classic" franchise. The ?only reason that film was g?reen lit was due to fear over starting a new franchise.

When you can guarantee that people will populate seats because of brand recognition, why would you even take a chance on something new? That mentality can basically be placed upon every remaster released, as well. Bulletstorm definitely got the short end of the stick back in 2011, but the or?iginal version was fine enough. We did not need to see a re-release of the game so soon, or at least not being sold on nostalgia by including Duke Nukem.

That move all but confirms that Gearbox didn’t have enough faith in the main game. They’re holding a potential sequel hostage with this remaster and they’re even throwing in Duke to satiate fans that are looking for The King’s return. Instead of taking the time to properly promote People Can Fly’s cult classic or actually develop a new title for Duke, we’re getting a mash-up that no one really asked for even if Duke kind of makes sense for Bulletstorm.

Then again, this is the same company that lied to our faces about Aliens: Colonial Marines and continues to exhibit shady business practices. Why did I expect anything more from them? I’m mostly just disappointed that his happened to two things I actually like. Despite Duke Nukem Forever being a flaming trash pile, I’ll never forget my time with 3D and how creative its level design is.

Duke Nukem is goofy and crass, sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t work in a modern space. Duke just can’t work under the care of Gearbox because they don’t care about anything but the bottom line. For that matter, because of launching Full Clip Edition at $60, I’m almost certain Gearbox has washed their hands of anything to do with a sequel. Maybe I’m underestimating the cost required to r??ebuild a game for newer consoles, but releasing th?is for $30 would have given it the shot in the arm that the original never had.

So what does this mean for Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour? I’m sad to say this, but I feel it’s a total failure. It might be worth a chuckle or two, but this easily should have been a feature included in the remaster and not some extra DLC. If you didn’t pre-order Full Clip Edition, then don’t even bother dealing with this. Duke is dead on arrival for his tour an??d that is a shame.

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Dick tits!

When we bought into the promise of next-generation gaming in 2013 with the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, I doub?t any of us thought we'd be playing remasters of last-generation games four years later. Here we are, though, with yet another remaster of a game that failed to sell all that well upon its initial releas?e.

Don't get me wrong, I think Bulletstorm was treated poorly. The game was (and still is) a great example of how to take contrived elements of triple-A gaming (like scripted events and QTEs) and breathe life into them by turning the absurdity up to 11. Full Clip Edition, though??, doesn't really justify its ??$60 price tag, especially with how limited the conversion is.

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition (PC, PS4 [Reviewed], Xbox One)
Developer: People Can Fly, Epic Games
Publisher: Gearbox Publishing
Released: April 7, 2017
MSRP: $59.99 (Consoles), $49.99 (PC)

Fans of Bulletstorm will tell you that the best thing about the game is its sense of humor??. Nothing is taken too seriously and it likes to play everything with a juvenile glee to counterbalance the ridiculous scenarios you'll be going through. While that is true for the first half of the campaign, the game slowly morphs into a serious drama about redemption and bonding that feels tonally out of place.

Still, even with story mishaps and some basically on-rails moments, Bulletstorm puts a bigger emphasis on its gunplay and all the creative ways you can murder your foes. Regardless of me rolling my eyes at the stupid jokes or grinding my teeth at how checkpoints are poorly handled (dialog will replay each time you die!), the real joy is in how People Can Fly managed to craft a fully-fledged space opera around a s??core attack arcade game.

You don't just rack up a useless high score, either; all of your skillshots (as the game calls them) act as currency to upgrade your weapons and unlock even more ridiculous abilities. A shooter is nothing without an interesting arsenal and Bulletstorm really? delivers on that front. About the only weapon I don't personally enjoy much is the sniper rifle, but mainly because I've always been a horrible shot with snipers in other first-person shooters.

Each weapon provides a unique opportunity for death dealing. Y??our standard (and ever present) assault rifle has a generic primary mode, but its secondary option shoots a blast that vaporizes any target unlucky enough to be in its radius. You eventually unlock ?a grenade launcher that has bouncing bombs and a drill weapon that shoots a pressurized spear through people, skewering them on impact.

The AI for your foes isn't the brightest around, but I don't believe that was the purpose. Even on "Very Hard" difficulty, Bulletstorm is a relatively easy game. Just blitzing thro?ugh the campaign is miss??ing the entire point of its structure, though. While levels are linear to a fault, the whole idea is that you're scanning each environment for brutal methods of dispatching enemies.

You can kick people into fences, spikes, man-eating plants, or electrical currents and watch as their body parts and bodily fluids rain across the sky. With your leash weapon, you can ??whip people directly to you, slo?wing down their momentum due to some unexplained science, to setup the perfect kill (which, for me, is often kicking them off a building). That is where the replayability comes in.

Towards the end, the main campaign begins to bog itself down too much with overly serious dialo?g, poor scripting, and obvious twists. The characters are archetypes from revenge films and the big villain is overly vulgar for even this game. He also appears really late into the campaign and is suddenly suppose?d to be this huge threat, despite going out like a chump.

Even the level design starts to get less creative with fewer opportunities to uniquely murder foes. I'm also not a fan of the scripted skillshots that are basically endcaps to interactive cutscenes. If I'm supposed to kill a boss with one specific move, that isn't really a skillshot. Thankfully, you can completely skip the main story and not miss out on the main point of Bulletstorm.

The side mode, Echoes, takes some of the more memorable set-piece moments and just lets you fly through them with most guns available. It eschews cutscences entirely and even removes QTEs, making for a much smoother experience. Echoes grades your performance in each level based on how many skillshots you perform and how fast you finish each section. Once done, you're given a star rating out of?? a possible three and are shipped off to the next level. The intensity never ramps down and you do??n't have to deal with constant interruptions to the killing.

Since Full Clip Edition packs in the two DLC packs from the original release, you also get Ultimate Echoes mode which gives specific objectives for each Echoes map. While this isn't as fun as being given the keys to a monster truck (like standard Echoes), it does provide yet another way to experience the gunplay that Bulletstorm nails so well.

In addition to that, upon beating the remaster, you'll now have Overkill Mode for the campaign. This skips? all character progression and lets you carry the full arsenal from the very beginning. If you manage to finish out the skillshot check??list, you'll even earn unlimited ammo for each gun, providing basically a "cheat" mode for the game. If nothing else, it certainly can be nice for blowing off steam.

As for the graphical upgrade that Full Clip Edition is being touted for, I can't say I'm that impressed. I originally experienced this game on PC back in 2012, so my memories are of a full 60 frames-per-second and a native 1080p presentation. While Full Clip Edition mostly nails t?hat, it doesn't look much different texture-wise.

I suppose certain character models have been cleaned up and the audio is presented in 7.1 (if you have support for that), but the PS4 release features some slowdown and I've noticed instances where characters will glitch through walls, where my character got stuck in place or fell through the environment, and even some weir??d issue with character models stretching across le?vel geometry.

There is also an odd issue where cutscene audio isn't normalized with regular game audio. This leads to moments where a set-piece might have somewhat soft audio and the following? cutscene will blow your walls down. I had to consta?ntly fiddle with my volume levels, which is very distracting and annoying.

In a disappointing turn of events, Gearbox didn't provide early access to the Duke Nukem pre-order bonus for review purposes. I was actually looking forward to trying that, but I can't say whether or not it fixes any issues I had with the story or if Duke's presence makes the game any funnier. Since it is a big selling point for this remaster, I'm a little shocked they didn't send the code earli??er. I'll give my impressions of that add-on as soon as I can.

Thankfully this remaster doesn't le??ave out the multiplayer from the original mode. I wasn't able to test it out before release (since no one was playing it)??, but I do remember it from years ago. Anarchy is what the mode is called and it essentially amounts to a horde mode. You and up to three friends can team up and viciously murder enemies to unlock customization options and different weapons.

Anarchy isn't the best thing around, but not ripping out the feature is a nice gesture. I can't believe how many times we've seen developers invest in a multiplayer option for their campaign (BioShock 2, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood/Revelations) only to have the remaster forego it in favor of barely updating the visuals. Even if Full Clip Edition isn't the best upgrade around, at l??east it truly is the most definitive package.

Still, paying $60 for a now six-year-old game is ludicrous. There may definitely be people who never experienced this on their old consoles (or even never owned those consoles), but I don't know that such a hefty?? entry fee is justified by the work done to this version. If we just had backwards compatibility on newer consoles, people who missed out on the original could have grabbed the title for under $15.

If you only ever experienced the original on consoles, though, Full Clip Edition might be more enticing. It speeds up the framerate, includes all the DLC, and even provides an insane new way to experience the campaign. Whether or not Duke adds to that is yet to be seen, but at?? least the main package lives up to its title.

_{[T??his review is based on a retail bui??ld of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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It's almost impressive in its tonal deficiency

Bulletstorm is a game that's drenched in ridiculousness. Its inane over-the-top combo-centric action is comp?lemented by its equally juvenile dialogue. Here's a sampling of some choice quotes: "I will kill your dicks!"; "You still reek of sunbaked asshole!"; "Take a lick on the salted taint of doom, you brain-dead biker whores!"; "Trudging through that radioactive goo mutated our good general into a giant pussy."

That is the kind of not-self-serious game Bulletstorm is. You wouldn't know it by watching this trailer for the remaster, though. Rather than leaning into everything that defines Bulletstorm, Gearbox and People Can Fly pulled back and cut a trailer that makes it seem like nothing more than anot?her snappy, setpiece-obsessed shooter. The choi?ce of music is especially dissonant. 

Bulletstorm oozes machismo in an effective parody of the space marine Gears of War-like tropes that rose to prominence during the last console generation. It was underappreciated and this remaster is a second chance to revel in everything that made Bulletstorm dumb but unique. You just wouldn't know it by watching this t??railer.

The post The new Bulletstorm trailer is inc?redibly not-Bulletstorm appeared first on Destructoid.

Bubblegum yadda yadda yadda

Bulletstorm had a fun idea before getting q??uietly shuffled away back in 2011. Now that Gearbox Publishing and People Can Fly are bringing a port with updated visuals (touting higher-res textures, 4K resolution on PS4 and PC) and new modes,  maybe it'll find its audience six years later. 

Speaking of finding an audience, if you pre-order Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition you get access to Duke Nukem. Forcibly inserted into the story with fresh lines from original Duke Nukem voice actor Jon St. John, maybe you can pretend this is actually Duke Nukem Forever and you weren't horribly disappointed years ago. Thanks to IGN, we have a look at how this'll work and it's...fine. Duke himself needs some finer tuning as his model doesn't quite fit in with the Bulletstorm universe (and the lip sync is even worse for wear), but once it gets into gameplay it's the same as it ever was just with occasional Nukem barbs. Who knows, maybe this is what Bulletstorm needed to be popular? 

Check out the story trailer, 14 minutes of gameplay, and Duke Nukem below. Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is out on PlayStation 4, X?box One, and PC Ap??ril 7th. 

Bulletstorm: Ful?l Clip Edition - 9 Minutes Duke Nukem Ga?meplay [IGN] 

14 Minutes? of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition Gamepl??ay in 4K [IGN]

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I'm not too surprised

[Update: It turns out my assumption about EA holding the rights to the original game seems to be true. Other users took to asking Randy Pitchford on Twitter and he responded with, "Not possible - completely dif?ferent publisher, era, platform (they were Games for Windows only), product/sku, etc." I kind of figured.]

After the announcement of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, I was pretty? stoked to finally have a PC version of the game without Games for Windows Live. Microsoft's failed Live integration system doesn't really run well on Windows 10 (and in some cases fails to even instal?l) and is really just a gigantic hassle for most users. Then I began to wonder if Gearbox would be offering some kind of loyalty discount or even potentially gifting the game to previous owners.

Turns out th??at that?? isn't going to happen. I took to Twitter to ask Randy Pitchford, the president and CEO of Gearbox, about just that and got a blunt response.

Now, this article isn't going to blast Pitchford for that decision or even the company's past. I actually kind of understand why the game isn't being offered as a free upgrade. Bulletstorm was originally published by EA (of all companies), so there is probably some legal issue preventing Gearbox from awarding past buyers with any discounts. Getting upgrades for free is also not the wisest business decision seeing as how companies need to make money to stay open. We may have come to expect it with 2K and THQ Nordic gi?fting out their remasters, but that really is more a show of good faith than anything else.

My main issue just comes from the pricing. By the time Full Clip Edition will be released, Bulletstorm will be slightly over six years old. Why is Gearbox charging $50 for a six-year-old remaster? I suppose since Bethesda can get away with it for Skyrim, but even I took offense to that kind of pricing. This isn't a completely new game and most of the DLC for Bulletstorm isn't even worth paying attention to.

You can also typically find the original version during a Steam sale for $5. The game looks incredible on PC and runs flawlessly, even with the Games for Windows Live integration, so this remaster is mostly a chance to remind gamers that Gearbox owns the rights to Duke Nukem and that we'll never see another good?? game starring him.

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Duke Nukem will be playable as a pre-order bonus

At The Game Awards 2016, Randy Pitchford announced that Gearbo??x Software will start publishing titles by smaller studios under the Gearbox Publishing label.

The first title to be released under this label is the People Can Fly-developed port of 2011's Bulletstorm. Titled Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, this enhanced port will offer 60FPS gameplay on Xbox One, PC and PS4. The l?atter two platforms will also offer what has been advertised a?s 4K visuals.

It will also have a playable Duke Nukem as? a pre-order bonus.

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition will be released on April 7 next year.

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Kill dicks in (better) HD!

Months ago during E3, someone "let loose" screenshots of a remastered Bulletstorm. While fans got excited, nothing was ever confirmed or denied regarding the status of a next-gen port. While this isn't an official statement about the existence of a remaster, the Brazil Advisory Rating Board has given a rating to something called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.

The platforms listed in the rating are PC, Xbox One and PS4. The publisher is everyone's favorite, Gearbox Software. I can't say I'm surprised by that, given that EA basically abandoned the original game on release, but?? I wonder why Gearbox would step in to fund a remaster. Maybe it's a thinly veiled attempt to regain goodwill with gamers?

Whether or not this news turns out to be true, we w?on't be seeing the actual release until next year. I guess a lot of time and effort needs to go into porting an Unreal Engine 3 game, despite that being ripe for multi-platform development.

Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition rated for PS4, Xbox One, and PC in Brazil [Gemastsu]

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