Reviews: She’s a black magic woman, she’s trying to make a devil out of me.
Bullet Witch was clearly built around the age-old concept that sex sells; slap a hot babe on the cover, give her a huge honking gun, and geeky male gamers will clamber over themselves to play it. The game doesn’t go much beyond this concept, which is unfortunate because it blows a great opportunity to create something truly cool and interesting.
Created by Japanese developer Cavia, Bullet Witch was part of a wave of import titles that hit our shores last year. Unfortunately, that wave contained a lot of flotsam, which either meant Japanese gamers have far different tastes than North Americans, or they thought it would be funny to dump some lousy games on us hapless gaijin.
In any event, Bullet Witch had perhaps the highest profile of those titles thanks to its sexy star, Alicia. The game starts in a world fallen into chaos due to war, disease and the sudden appearance of killer demons. Don’t you hate it when that happens? As these demons threaten to overwhelm the planet, a young hot chick strolls in on her stilettos to save the day. The story unravels through pre-rendered cutscenes and projects its “shocking” plot twist so early and blatantly, you’d have to be blind not to see it coming.
As the title suggests, Alicia is a witch sporting a ridiculously huge gun that looks like a broom (she avoids wearing a pointed hat, though). The broom (called a Gunrod) shoots like a machinegun but can be upgraded to switch to a shotgun, cannon or a devastating minigun. Alicia can also spin it like a baton for a powerful melee attack but its momentum carries her in odd directions, making it difficult to aim properly even at point blank range. Most of the time, however, you’ll just use the default machinegun since it has the best balance of range, accuracy and damage.
You can upgrade each weapon type to three levels to add more power but the difference between the levels is marginal at best. Upgrading is performed by redeeming points you earn during each level, with points rewarded for kills, completion time and how many human NPCs survived.
You can also buy and upgrade magic spells, which are defensive (like conjuring up a wall to provide temporary protection, or summoning a flock of ravens to swarm and confuse enemies) or offensive (casting down lightning or throwing rose petals that shoot up deadly metal spikes from the ground).
Your spells can make quick work of enemies but they are hard to aim properly; as well, the more powerful spells take forever to cast. After selecting your spell from a menu (which does not pause the game when you bring it up), you go into an elaborate mini-cutscene of Alicia casting the spell. You then have to aim and activate it. Unfortunately, while all of this is going on your enemies are still attacking you and causing damage; and if you get hit, your spell is cancelled and you have to start all over again. Very annoying.
The best and most powerful spells are only unlocked late in the story but can be a blast to use – literally. This is thanks to the wonderfully destructible environments that let you do things like destroy an entire city block with your devastating meteor shower spell. My favorite is when you are being swarmed at a military base and can cast a massive tornado that sweeps up enemies, vehicles (including helicopters), giant water tanks, and even building roofs and siding. The devastation looks fantastic and is a lot of fun to watch.
Unfortunately, the developers chose not to take advantage of the destructible environments, which could have made for a very fun blow-em-up action game. Instead, they rely on third-person shooting – which admittedly, can get quite frantic and crazy at times – but the incredibly stupid AI makes things way too easy.
Enemies love standing in one spot so you can easily pick them off, and the ones that actually move will either roll around in the open (never seeking cover) or run straight at you. The only time you will die is if you rush into the middle of a swarm or when the game deviously spawns enemies behind you in an area you just cleared out.
Occasionally you will have friendly AI soldiers fighting by your side but they are just as stupid as the enemy, dumbly standing in the open, often attempting to shoot through walls and have an annoying knack of getting in your way and blocking the camera.
Because of the idiotic AI, the game relies on cheap or broken tactics to kill you. For example, enemy snipers automatically lock onto you and will never miss, resulting in a one-hit kill. Dodging won’t help; the only way to avoid death is to find cover, and fast. Also, flying debris like cars and chunks of buildings will kill you instantly, which would be reasonable except for the fact that the hit detection is way off. You’ll be killed by debris that clearly misses you by at least 10 feet, which is frustrating to say the least.
Lest you think flying debris is a rare occurrence, think again. There are only three types of enemies: Geist soldiers, demons who wear the skins of their victims and carry guns; Gigas, who are towering giants armed with a massive chaingun but are ridiculously easy to kill; and the appropriately named Walnut Heads who are giant floating brains that attack by telekinetically throwing cars and huge chunks of concrete. Killing Walnut Heads is not only important for avoiding their attacks, but also to shut down their telepathic walls blocking your progress. They’re also fun (and easy) to kill, mainly because they explode in a bloody gush; as well, they make an unintentionally funny noise that’s supposed to be creepy, but instead sounds like a comedic parody of a groaning ghost.
The almost non-existent variety of enemies and their stupid AI makes the game quite easy. The six levels are physically huge – which often means spending lots of time wandering around wondering where the heck to go – but you can easily finish the game in four to five hours. The final boss battle is tough only because it’s tedious and takes so bloody long at a grinding 15-30 minutes.
Visually, the game is average at best. Alicia looks quite good with decent detail and smooth animation (especially her acrobatic flips). The same can’t be said for enemies and NPC’s, who are almost PS2-quality and have very jerky animation. Buildings and environments are bland and generic, though they look really cool when blowing up. There is lots of pop up and the game will start chugging when there is a lot of action on screen.
What’s worse is the horrible voice acting. The actress who plays Alicia does a fine job but the actor who voices the human military commander Maxwell Cougar (no, I’m not joking) is absolutely atrocious. Quite frankly, he sounds like a Maxwell Cougar, complete with a diploma in Bad English Dubbing from the William Shatner School of Acting. The tripe the developers call dialogue is also so bad it’s funny. Take these gems for example: “Isn’t there anything you can do to stop the end of the world?” and “I’ve lost all that mattered to me. Now all I have left is the protection of humanity.” Do you know anyone who actually talks like this? But my personal favorite is this conversation between Alicia and Maxwell:
Alicia (after explaining what she needs to take down the final boss): “That’s the reason why I need your help.”
Maxwell: “So, you need our help. I’ve got it.”
Hey, no barnacles growing on the Coug.
