Brutal Doom, while the creator can be seen as controversial, had a very large impact on the FPS genre in several different ways. It brought about brand new life to one of the greatest games ever made and showed people that there is gold within thar hills. This apparently caught the eye of Games Workshop and had them imbue it with their own property. The result is Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun to the delight of many. There is more to this game than just big creatively crafted weapons, big explosions of blood from enemies, and low demanding graphics that still look stylistic and beautiful. There are a lot of great features in this game that will allow gamers to return again and again.
The levels can be considered more linear than Doom, but even then, they are still smooth to play and fun to look at. Whether it be a sinister looking metal forge or a winter land temple, this game has it down pat. The enemies can be a little hard to see in some instances, especially when they are tiny and hard to shoot. That is more a feature than a glitch, but it is worth noting. When you see a bridge that's blown out, you can still jump from platform to platform while blasting your boltgun and shotgun into enemies' faces while doing so. There are secrets (though some of them are rather obvious) and there are plenty of places to explore while trying to dodge fire from entire hordes of foes.
The graphics need to be praised for several reasons. It is amazing that, with the most minimal use of a computer's storage, they stylized this in the vain of Brutal Doom and pulled it off in spades. We've run into huge 3D games that take up 50 to 100 gigabytes of space while not having even half of the charm of this one title. The controls and the aim of your weapon are fluid. If you are being killed, you feel like this is you failing to kill your enemies, not something that the game did wrong or a glitch that killed the experience. Sure, you can argue that they copied a small Doom mod and thus already had an prototype to work from, but the fact that they used it and did so with such craftsmanship, just goes to show that they know what they're doing. Anyone can try and copy a game's merits, looking at the dollars it made, and still fail to capture what people liked about it in the first place.
The boss battles are quite bullet spongy, but they are also awesome to look at. They are also a great deal of fun to kill. There are a lot of tiny enemies to kill around them, more often than not, but that is just when you hunker down and find a strategy to bring them down. This includes running, hiding, grabbing the health drops and sneaking hits on them as you circle strafe. That's what those mechanics are there for.
There are some amazing weapons on display here. The saw sword is used to amazing effect and it's the first weapon you have from the very beginning. It is also the right mouse button, so you only need to target a single enemy and power up your chain blade to whir them into a puddle. The boltgun, which the game is named after, packs a serious punch. The sound quality and the impact of the enemy's bloody chunks make this a very rewarding experience.
The flame spouter is not the greatest. Honestly, it should have more of a flamethrower quality with a bit more damage to enemies. You need to target enemy vehicles or fuel barrels before its use becomes warranted. The plasmagun and the grav gun are fun to use, and it's a lot of fun to see the amount of damage it punishes the enemies with. There are a lot of weapons to go into, but out of all of them, my favorite has to be the Vengeance Launcher. They could have just given you a random grenade launcher, but instead, they give you something that fires dark matter explosives. This will destroy anything it touches, or even gets fired close to their proximity. They will explode and you just feel warm all over. That may be radiation, you might want to get that checked out.
The very idea that all of this came about from a hardly 3D game is baffling. Obviously, a sequel is planning to come out. It has already been scheduled on the very specific date of 2026. If they keep to its roots and give people the weapons, gore and captivating settings, it can be an even better title than this one. Will that happen, well, probably not, but it would not be a terrible thing to be more of what we like. Boltgun attracts a specific fanbase and if you please the FPS crowd, you have your potential Game of the Year practically in the bag. Other gaming coporations, take note. We all know you won't. Virtua Bankrupt.
