Boltgun Stream Summary - 16/03/24

 

You know it's funny... you start a whole streaming series where people vote on what you're going to play and a couple of weeks later the perfect game to stream for this blog pops up on Game Pass. I am of course referring to the retro FPS inspired shooter Boltgun, a game where you take the role of an Ultramarine Sternguard Veteran tasked with stopping a chaos invasion of the Forge World of Graia where a rogue techpriest has been very naughty indeed.

Fortunately for the viewers, the title screen music was a lot more tolerable than my current Random Sel-X game, Peggle 2, and as soon as I got on properly and hit new game I was treated to a little prologue to the game, presented in the style of a mission briefing from an allied Techpriest.

Auroch Digital did a great job at capturing the feel of 40k

Once the game kicked off and I was in the drivers seat, it turned out that, due to circumstances beyond my character's control, my drop pod landed way off course. I blame the sloppy work of the Mechanicus personally, but I digress. The first thing that struck me was just how gorgeous the whole game looked, not in a AAA game kind of way but just through pure nostalgia, it heavily reminded me of the old DOOM games from the 90's mixed with the stylings of the more modern DOOM remakes. From the go it was fast, frantic and immensely satisfying... or at least it was after the first level. The first level served as a tutorial level of sorts and taught me all the core mechanics such as shooting (obviously given the game's name!), dashing, puzzle solving and, my personal favourite, chainswording peoples faces off.

All Brutal, No Cunnin'

Level 2 was when the game really began to shine, though I did get lost very early on for a good half an hour. A map would sure be nice in this game - yet another example of the Mechanicus's shortcomings! But I digress yet again...

For context, up until about, I'd say two thirds through the second level all I was doing was blasting Chaos Cultists into a fine mist with holy bolter rounds and quite happily so I must say. That all changed when I opened a door and was immediately greeted by a Black Legion Space Marine and, well I don't mind telling you I may have panicked slightly because this guy had frikkin' grenades and power armour.

Chaos Space Marines just feel scary to face, at least to begin with

One thing I did notice at this point, and you will see this in the above picture too, is that the enemy health bars display their toughness which correlate with the actual tabletop game. Likewise, in the bottom right it displays the strength of your current weapon which, again correlates with the tabletop game and is an incredibly fitting way to show if its strength goes up for any reason, eg through power ups, weapon mods etc.

This was just one of the ways in which the game does a fantastic job of translating the tabletop game into a a thrilling and gripping gaming experience as the enemies were genuinely designed in the way Games Workshop had envisioned them. This was pretty straight forward for the cultists and Space Marine enemies but really shone through when Daemons entered the picture. If you're not familiar with 40k a lot of the Daemon weirdness will surprise you at first, but if you are familiar with 40k you'll know exactly what to expect - Pink Horrors turn into 2 Blue Horrors when killed, Plague Toads are tough and will fire high damage toxic sludge at you, you don't want to stand in front of Flamers of Tzeentch for too long and Nurglings just jump at you and generally be a nuisance.

You can also taunt the Daemons - they don't teach you that!

As the stream progressed I must have completed between 4 and 5 missions, starting in snow capped mountains and ending in the heart of a Forge World city. That was when things really went mental - I mean you can't be given a Plasma Gun in an arena full of Daemons, Cultists (some of which were also armed with Plasma Guns which I can tell you, hurt), Chaos Space Marines and... oh yeah, Terminators. Which was fun.

And I complained that Space Marines were bad!

There wasn't much more to the stream after this as I finished it at the end of the level, but just to (war)hammer the point of how deep this game goes with the tabletop references there are several different types of Nurglings that come at you and... wait a minute, this guy looks familiar...

I recognise that helmet...

Well, that's all for this stream. I'm looking forward to continue streaming this game again soon but due to a lot of things happening this week (namely the end of my current narrative campaign and the start of my next) I haven't had a chance to set a date or prep my streaming set up properly so it may be on a weekday next time as opposed to a weekend, but I don't know, we shall see! Until then I will be doing my third Peggle 2 stream on Wednesday 27th March at either 9:30pm or 10:30pm, depending on when I can get on. See you then!

- D J Driver