With all the new video games coming out, I figured I should try out some demos, an let you know how I felt about them. So instead of you finding out it was a waste of time, let me take that pain away from you. This week I tried out two games recently released, Bulletstorm and Stacked.
With the release of Bulletstorm, I had a chance to play a demo of the game before the release. To be honest, I was not satisfied with the outcome of the game. I was getting bored with it after about 15 minutes.. This game is developed by Epic Games, who is well-known for the Locust stomping Gears of War franchise. Epic wanted this game to be completely different from Gears, and they achieved it by a long shot.
The storyline in basic terms is that you are a space pirate hunting down your-ex commander on a planet of mutants and monsters, with a side of criminals. The reason for the big hype for this game is the “skillshot.” This gives the player the opportunity to kill an enemy in many different combinations, and earn points for doing so. Now these points are added up and used at a “dropkit”, which is basically a pit stop to spend points and check on achievements. Another jolt to the game is, of course, the vulgar behavior and obscene language. If you have played Gears of War, this should be old news to you.
In the end, Bulletstorm turned out to be flop, at least for me. The graphics turned out fantastic, even though there wasn’t much of an interesting storyline. However, trying to find out all the different kill combinations was getting pretty boring. Personally, I would save my money and wait for Epic’s next game to be released.
Another demo I decided to try out was a game called Stacking. This is an adventure/puzzle game which the characters are nothing but Russian matryoshka dolls. The whole point of the game is to solve different puzzles by stacking up all sorts of russian dolls.
The story takes place during industrial times. The Baron is forcing the Blackmore family children to work as slaves to pay off debt, and it is up to Charlie to save his family. Although that is the main objective, there are other tasks and puzzles that can be solved in the game. What got me interested was the fact that each doll had a certain ability. Charlie is the smallest of all the dolls. So when he would hop into a doll one size bigger, he takes on the power of that doll.So with each doll in the game having a different ability, all the puzzles could be solved in different ways.
I think the best part of the game, at least for me, were the cutscenes. They are shown in the same fashion as silent films. So when the cutsecenes start up, it looks like it is all on stage. Although the main stage of the whole game is at a train station, you have the freedom to wander off to other places in the game. In the end, Stacking gave me more than what I was expecting.
So in the spirit of Coffee, I feel obligated to keep you caffeinated, even with the ratings. Instead of Stars, how about we use Coffee beans.
I would have to rate Bulletstorm 2 out of 5 coffee beans. Even though the graphics were well produced, the storyline as well as the “skillshot” just couldn’t bring interest to the game.
For Stacking, I would have to rate it 4 out of 5 coffee beans. Although the graphics were not as good as Bulletstorm, the storyline as well as the whole concept of the game brought a great amount of enjoyment to the table. I had a great time playing the demo, and I am definitely considering getting the full version.