First of all, I would like to apologise to first the PR team trying to get the word out about this game and secondly to the talented developers. Now that’s out the way, I had better explain myself a little here.

 

So what must have been 2 weeks ago I was sent a code to review Blues and Bullets and I think you'll all be thinking the same as I did: “What the hell is this game?” I'd never heard of it. So I did what all editors do and email off to the rest of the OUG team to try and palm it off. But I guess they all had never heard of it and I never got a reply.

 

So a few days went by while I was hoping someone would take this from my hands but still nothing. The after a few more days I just simply forgot about this game. I mean, it has one of the worst names I'd heard in a very long time.

 

Then a matter of a few days ago I got a friendly reminder asking how the review was coming along. So I quickly found the original email and decided I had better do my job!

 

So, as I previously said, I had no idea what Blues and Bullets was and I was expecting a really bad run and gun 3rd person shooter, as that’s what all games are now. But I was massively surprised to find a game that is so similar to the Telltale formula that, if I hadn’t known this was developed by A Crowd of Monsters, then I would have put my house on that this was the next game from The Walking Dead team!

 

This is in the same vain as those new-style Point and Click Adventure games. Now the first thing that grabs the attention is the art style the developer has chosen and WOW the game just simply oozes style and grabs your undivided attention. The game plays in black and white except for anything red, and that colour choice is good as you see a lot of red.

 

The game had a few stutters when loading to the next scene but that might be more to do with my PC than the game itself. There are some amazing F/X going on the screen from rain to the simply stunning trees waving in the wind. Now I really don't want to mention anything about the story as with all these games the story is the main focus of the game itself, let's just say I was completely glued to the screen for the next few hours.

 

There are the standard control your character in the 3D world and look for clues, then the always tense way of talking with the NPC's. There is also a 3rd person cover shooter within the game too but this feels like a simple game of Time Crisis where you can duck behind cover and pop out to shoot the bad guys. Now this is nothing amazing but it’s not bad and when the game is more story focused you don't want any really bad gameplay mechanics to get in the way. Thankfully, these don't and I found it actually quite fun when you get used to aiming up and popping out with a satisfying headshot.

 

Then as this is etched firmly in the comic film noire setting you come to bits in the game where you have to solve murders and these are like simple puzzles you have a flow chart that looks something like a family tree. There are four or more questions that have to be answered to solve the puzzle and these were really fun plus all that red blood all over the screen almost made me think I had the Nintendo Virtual Boy back on.

 

With these sort of games, it live or dies with the main story and with part one of this game I was floored at how everything linked together. If we get all the episodes of the series and they are as good as this, we will be looking at a game that will be in a shout of getting some game of the year loves as what is here just makes me want to play the whole series right through right now.