Dakka dakka - that’s what I would say if I were an Ork reviewing this game but unfortunately my brain is larger and along with more complicated feelings versus a lust for war also comes deeper thoughts and ultimately disappointments.
Boltgun does a lot right, the aesthetic is perfect - a real ‘Eavy Metal feel that reminds me of going into Games-Workshop as a child and seeing long haired staff with leather or denim jackets painting tiny little monsters and being enamored.
Boltgun’s weapon variety is great, whilst the titular gun is by far the most fun weapon the upclose bursts of Melta, the hammering Heavy Bolter and the close combat dash and blood splatters from a Chainsword are all well realised.
The plethora of enemies is good too, swarms of cheeky little Nurglings, squishy Cultists all the way to intimidating Terminators and Greater Deamons this game focuses on Chaos (Tzeentch and Nurgle flavours) and leads into a great flow if with a couple of difficulty spikes.
This all sounds pretty good so far I’m sure, and when you play the first level or two of Boltgun you’ll probably feel that too but sadly pretty good is all it really has to show and that on its own slowly unravels like the failing mind of Chaos Psyker.
The aesthetic is great but more often than I’d like to admit I found myself lost, going in circles looking at very similar rooms.
Sure the game does have lines of small health and contempt (your armour) pickups to lead the way on occasion. Every so often walls are marked for you to jump to or arrows show the way but somehow even with those things implemented the game still becomes a maze of rust and metal with a servo skull that won’t guide you except to say “see this health pack in front of you, that’s there that is”... good work pal, I’m on 250HP as is.
Boltgun being a boomer shooter goes well with the feel of a Space Marine and the weapons you get access to are mostly signatures that anyone remotely familiar with those little plastic bastards will know some of. Then there’s a dash.
At first I thought Boltgun was going to give you a series of abilities throughout, either on a per level basis or to keep as you went. Instead you get a dash which is clunky and feels entirely pointless, especially considering the ground your melee attack could cover.
Constantly dashing may sound strange for a Space Marine but your character does clunk along and still manage to feel heavy which is great, that is until it starts to introduce platforming.
Genuinely I think the platforming this game wants you to do along with jump packs just being jump pads made me drop an entire star from this game’s score.
Outside of getting lost, clunkily jumping and going up platforms contribute to the absolute worst levels in this game. They may be seen as variety but they hamper the entire beautiful flow this game could have.
Enemy variety is good like I said but slowly as the game moves on this variety dissolves into waves which are too similar, enemies that are just bullet sponges or hit so hard you have to do a tour of the kill room to come back and fire at again and too often does it fill your screen with Nurglings which are meant to be annoying but become a frustration as your vision is full of shite while you’re trying to enjoy the larger more unique boss type enemies.
Some of this goes hand-in-hand with the boomer shooter genre and at first like the level design flaws do not feel like an issue, but in the same way the fresh becomes rotten and it makes you consider chucking it all away.
Thankfully the length of the game is just about right and the story with nods to previous games as well as your 40K lore is the right level of depth with the style it is portraying.
It is just a shame that it is so forgettable, the story is so generic but so are most of the levels and the music - the music is almost criminally boring. The trailers, the title screen, they all have an old power metal style feel to them but whilst I know it may be too much to expect a Mick Gordon level of soundtrack but this isn’t even close to the same league.
They should have gotten the rights to put Bolt Thrower music on this.
I’m disappointed that in the end my opinion of Boltgun falls this low, I look at the quite high Metacritic scores and question so much.
Warhammer 40,000 and many of the Games-Workshop properties are close to my heart. I worked for them for close to a decade and would say that, even though it’s not much in my life now, I’ve been a tabletop gamer since I was nine.
I guess sometimes association leads to expectation which can lead to disappointments like this.
It is strange though because 2011’s Space Marine is my go-to example of how an IP can make a game better for someone if they enjoy that. Space Marine, a game which is honestly a 6 or 7/10 I would say is an 8-9 if you like 40k but sadly if it has helped Boltgun in the same way then maybe this game is actually bad?
Let’s just hope Space Marine 2 is better.
Boltgun does a lot right, the aesthetic is perfect - a real ‘Eavy Metal feel that reminds me of going into Games-Workshop as a child and seeing long haired staff with leather or denim jackets painting tiny little monsters and being enamored.
Boltgun’s weapon variety is great, whilst the titular gun is by far the most fun weapon the upclose bursts of Melta, the hammering Heavy Bolter and the close combat dash and blood splatters from a Chainsword are all well realised.
The plethora of enemies is good too, swarms of cheeky little Nurglings, squishy Cultists all the way to intimidating Terminators and Greater Deamons this game focuses on Chaos (Tzeentch and Nurgle flavours) and leads into a great flow if with a couple of difficulty spikes.
This all sounds pretty good so far I’m sure, and when you play the first level or two of Boltgun you’ll probably feel that too but sadly pretty good is all it really has to show and that on its own slowly unravels like the failing mind of Chaos Psyker.
The aesthetic is great but more often than I’d like to admit I found myself lost, going in circles looking at very similar rooms.
Sure the game does have lines of small health and contempt (your armour) pickups to lead the way on occasion. Every so often walls are marked for you to jump to or arrows show the way but somehow even with those things implemented the game still becomes a maze of rust and metal with a servo skull that won’t guide you except to say “see this health pack in front of you, that’s there that is”... good work pal, I’m on 250HP as is.
Boltgun being a boomer shooter goes well with the feel of a Space Marine and the weapons you get access to are mostly signatures that anyone remotely familiar with those little plastic bastards will know some of. Then there’s a dash.
At first I thought Boltgun was going to give you a series of abilities throughout, either on a per level basis or to keep as you went. Instead you get a dash which is clunky and feels entirely pointless, especially considering the ground your melee attack could cover.
Constantly dashing may sound strange for a Space Marine but your character does clunk along and still manage to feel heavy which is great, that is until it starts to introduce platforming.
Genuinely I think the platforming this game wants you to do along with jump packs just being jump pads made me drop an entire star from this game’s score.
Outside of getting lost, clunkily jumping and going up platforms contribute to the absolute worst levels in this game. They may be seen as variety but they hamper the entire beautiful flow this game could have.
Enemy variety is good like I said but slowly as the game moves on this variety dissolves into waves which are too similar, enemies that are just bullet sponges or hit so hard you have to do a tour of the kill room to come back and fire at again and too often does it fill your screen with Nurglings which are meant to be annoying but become a frustration as your vision is full of shite while you’re trying to enjoy the larger more unique boss type enemies.
Some of this goes hand-in-hand with the boomer shooter genre and at first like the level design flaws do not feel like an issue, but in the same way the fresh becomes rotten and it makes you consider chucking it all away.
Thankfully the length of the game is just about right and the story with nods to previous games as well as your 40K lore is the right level of depth with the style it is portraying.
It is just a shame that it is so forgettable, the story is so generic but so are most of the levels and the music - the music is almost criminally boring. The trailers, the title screen, they all have an old power metal style feel to them but whilst I know it may be too much to expect a Mick Gordon level of soundtrack but this isn’t even close to the same league.
They should have gotten the rights to put Bolt Thrower music on this.
I’m disappointed that in the end my opinion of Boltgun falls this low, I look at the quite high Metacritic scores and question so much.
Warhammer 40,000 and many of the Games-Workshop properties are close to my heart. I worked for them for close to a decade and would say that, even though it’s not much in my life now, I’ve been a tabletop gamer since I was nine.
I guess sometimes association leads to expectation which can lead to disappointments like this.
It is strange though because 2011’s Space Marine is my go-to example of how an IP can make a game better for someone if they enjoy that. Space Marine, a game which is honestly a 6 or 7/10 I would say is an 8-9 if you like 40k but sadly if it has helped Boltgun in the same way then maybe this game is actually bad?
Let’s just hope Space Marine 2 is better.