izigame.me

Retro shooter fan? Enjoy 100%ing games? This review is for you.
(TL;DR at the end)

If you're a completionist like me, it is very easy to be misled by this game's positive reviews. A quick review of this game's achievement stats shows an abnormally sharp drop in player retention with ~48.8% of players quitting after finishing the 1st chapter. Now I am well aware that the achievement stats are not a 1:1 representation of all the people who reviewed this game but it still goes to show you that, by in large, most players who played Boltgun did not engage with it in any meaningful manner.
The following is my personal opinion on the game as a huge fan of the retro shooter genre that has 100%’d Boltgun and its' DLC but has absolutely ZERO knowledge of the 40K universe or the lore.
1. The enemy design leaves a lot to be desired
All enemies in this game basically fall into 3 categories.
- Humanoid fodder enemies
Fighting these guys feels like a waste of time
- Tanky bullet sponge pressure units
Fighting these guys feels like doing the dishes
- Massive hordes of tiny nuisance enemies
Fighting these guys feels like getting soap in your d*ckhole.
Combine these 3 enemy types in an arena fight and you get a concerto of mediocrity.
2. The secrets are weird and inconsistent
A “secret” in this game can be the most cryptic and convoluted thing to find or it can simply be an item that’s behind a box off the wayside. This means that finding a secret can be as simple as turning the camera away from the obvious forward path for 0.1 seconds or it can require the player to be omniscient and there’s no in-between. This creates a sense of paranoia when you end up missing 1 secret and don’t know what type of secret you’re trying to find, or if you’ve passed a point of no return and have completely missed the secret. This brings me to my next point.
3. The game does not lend itself to completionists at all.
The levels are not backwards explorable, so it's very easy to miss secrets or kills and not be able to go back and look for them. The kill % counter is also very cursed and tracks based on the amount of enemies that have spawned on the map thus far so it is constantly updating as you go through the level. I have also gotten several situations where the kill counter would not register an enemy that falls into the void or clips out of bounds. This is immensely frustrating as it basically requires a full restart of the level. Enjoy gunning down every toad and nurgling all over again.
4. The soundtrack is basically non-existent.
Boltgun’s soundtrack is something you’ll probably barely notice while you play, and it’s pretty underwhelming even when you do take the time to try and single it out while
it’s playing behind the sound effects. This comes as a pretty big disappointment for me as this sub-genre has spoiled us so far with the epic metal riffs you will find playing DOOM, Dusk, Prodeus and Forgive Me Father or even the atmospheric and unsettling tunes of HROT and Cultic (I haven’t played Ultrakill yet, crucify me). Either way, the bar has been set really high and in my humble opinion, you can’t market yourself as a “boomer shooter” these days and have a soundtrack as lackluster as Boltgun’s.
5. The combat feels off and it’s hard to put my finger on why.
This could be because of the horrendous damage feedback the game provides, the sluggish player movement, the complete lack of audio queues provided by the enemies around you or the bizarre weapon strength system that dictates the damage delivered to enemies. Each of these minor issues would not be so bad on their own, but together they create a combat experience that does not feel outright BAD but definitely feels lacking.
TL;DR
As a grizzled retro-shooter veteran/completionist, Boltgun misses the mark for me in multiple ways. The enemies are all either quick and tiny nuisances or insufferable bullet sponges, the soundtrack is pretty much non-existent, the combat lacks proper auditory/visual feedback, and trying to 100% this game was a janky and frustrating slog.