Like a particularly well-coated Dorito, a few of the mini-games’ rather ingenious design is an unexpected treat in a familiar package.
There’s something refreshing about Operation Flashpoint: Red River’s attempt to be innovative and relevant in a post-Modern Warfare world.
And so it goes that Bulletstorm is an unfocused and repetitive mess, never completely succeeding in anything it attempts—excess without abundance, gravitas without weight.
The sheer amount of fighting going on, coupled with each level’s (usually well-integrated) mini-cutscenes, creates a moderate sense of being detached from the proceedings, as if one’s own actions aren’t completely affecting the ongoing battles’ outcome.
That Medal of Honor feigns reality but delivers only standard video-game combat makes it no more reductive, misleading, and insensitive to the wartime experience than its legion of genre brethren.
As the fall and winter months barrel down upon us, so does the cavalcade of retail video game releases.
It remains fundamentally about proceeding straight to the next skirmish, killing every enemy in sight, and then escaping to a checkpoint so an ignorable, if attractive, cutscene can begin.