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Updated review as of 1.4 update
The game is now in a pretty good place, and most of the technical issues I originally mentioned have been resolved. All the positives remain intact as well. Visually, the game finally looks great and stays faithful to the original, even surpassing it in some places. The developer has also made several additions to the environments, including physical objects you can interact with and VR-specific prompts, mechanics, and mini-games that make this version unique enough to justify a VR conversion. In other words, the VR port is transformative enough to offer a fun and unique way to experience Bulletstorm. It's now in a good enough state that it's as worthy of revisiting as Half-Life 2 or Resident Evil 4 in VR.
The only thing holding it back from being one of the greats among VR ports of classic games is the continued absence of some levels from the original. While the horde mode is decent enough, I would have much preferred if the effort that went into developing this mode had been spent on recreating the missing levels from the original campaign. Aside from some visual improvements and elements designed to leverage the VR format, the campaign has remained more or less the same.
That said, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this game if you're looking for a solid addition to your VR collection, especially if you’re looking for another VR shooter with awesome weapon handling and fun gameplay.
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Original review
Positives:
- The VR controls are smooth and functioned without major issues. The only problem was occasionally difficult reloading of the Flailgun in immersive mode (played on Quest 2 via AirLink).
- Optimization is great, with smooth performance across the board and sharp rendering quality (Ryzen x7, 4070 Super, 32GB RAM, SSD, Windows 11; highest settings).
- VR comfort settings are also very good, allowing you to tailor the experience to your liking, including different weapon handling methods for immersive or automated reloading, the latter of which allows for a more dynamic play style with guns akimbo.
- Pre-rendered cinematics in stereoscopic 3D mode is a neat idea that makes the cutscenes more interesting to look at compared to flat image.
Now, with that out of the way, my main reason for why this is such a disappointing port, is that the campaign was practically butchered compared to the original Bulletstorm.
First off, this version has significantly worse graphics, mainly due to awful lighting that makes the game look muted, monochromatic, and muddy. Compared to the bright and colorful original, this version looks ugly, with lowered texture resolution, reduced environmental detail, low-poly meshes, and bad character models that don't even move their mouths when talking. The visuals simply appear unfinished, which is even more noticeable in VR where each imperfection stands out like a sore thumb, so reduced graphics quality makes this version doubly ugly.
Secondly, significant portions of the campaign have been cut for some reason, including some of the most memorable moments from the original campaign. You can even take a look at my total play time, which was just under six hours on normal difficulty, whereas the original usually took nearly twice as long and was definitely more challenging to play. Granted, some segments were replaced with two new levels featuring Trishka, who at the very least comes with a new VR-specific mechanic in the form of wrist-mounted laser blades, and it does show that some attention was given to leveraging the VR format. However, these levels are too brief and too bland to be a sufficient replacement for the missing segments. This should have been an additional content that's unique to this version, at best, but not a substitute for any of the original levels.
The game also suffers from bugs, especially with enemy AI. Enemies frequently get stuck, either not shooting or standing idle. Often, when using the leash or kicking something, it makes the objects poof out of existence, as if my mighty boot disintegrated them into subatomic particles.
If I were to guess, most of these issues likely stem from porting the original Bulletstorm into Unreal Engine 4 so that it could then be translated to VR, and that's because UE4 has native VR tools when UE3, the game's original engine, does not. It would certainly explain why so many of the assets look like they were ripped straight from a different engine without any touch-ups, and why the visuals look so unoptimized and unfinished. Perhaps this is also the reason why so many segments were replaced with these uninspired Trishka levels, because the team simply didn't have enough time or resources to properly translate some unique mechanics form the original game into a VR format. But regardless of what exactly happened, this was clearly a project that needed much more time to cook.
Even though in its current form it's decently playable as a VR shooter, overall it's a vastly inferior version of the original classic and it's definitely not worth the full asking price. I'd only recommend it when it's on deep discount. If a group of enthusiasts such as Team Beef can pull off exceptional VR ports of classic games, and do it for free for everyone to enjoy, then there's simply no excuse for PCF to ask so much money for such a shoddy version of an otherwise excellent game.