An average time killer
I seriously picked this game up on a complete whim. The games concept, to me, was hilarious, at best, and this game would either be very sad or mediocre, again, at best. I will admit I was mildly drawn in by the main characters looks and costume; I was actually looking forward to battling my way through hordes of enemies with her, much like I did with Blood Rayne. On that note, I think users can expect a bit of influence from the Blood Rayne concept that has seen a good amount of success.
You play as Alicia, who is a scantily clad witch that also happens to walk around in stiletto heals and carry an oversized gun. I really don't understand this penchant with oversized weapons like we see in Final Fantasy, for example. They're just unwieldy and no one could logically use these things. I realize the developers want it to look like her "broom", but that's just kind of goofy. Ah well, either way she is definitely the best developed character in this game and basically the best scripted during the video sequences. You end up learning about her history as the game goes on, but when it starts you're in a small suburban town on the outside of New York City and it's being attacked by these undead looking creatures. Apparently demons are attacking the world and when the army was sent in they were possessed or something, because there are vast amounts of soldier demons. However, Alicia certainly isn't defenseless for she has magical powers and a gun rod at her disposal. Basically you fight your way through the stages, meet up with some other human defenders, and learn more about the story behind why the demons are attacking.
Yeah, it's a pretty basic game, but it was decently fun while it lasted. There are some really cool things you can do in this game, but there are some major hang ups as well. Character control was pretty decent, I really like the fact that Alicia can jump really high in the air. She manages to execute some really intense jumps; similar to what we saw on Blood Rayne, but it naturally makes me wonder how she lands in those high heels... Anyway, the user view feels a little weird because you're basically always focusing off to the right and even more so when you use the zoom function. The zoom function is hugely necessary, but it has some serious problems too. Such as if you're trying to hide or have some sort of cover and there's something behind you don't expect to be looking at the enemy you're aiming at... yeah the camera doesn't compensate for objects behind you so you see the inside of them. This is even more frustrating with some of the human defenders that follow you from time to time, they constantly step in front of you while you're trying to aim at something or stand RIGHT in the way blocking the camera. They seriously need to adjust some parts of the AI for this game, because it's pretty twitchy. Like the game should know I'm trying to zoom because the view is so limiting so get those extras out of the way! I was pretty glad when they were eventually killed off half the time. The same goes for the enemy AI. A lot of times you're in a situation where you need to completely kill all the enemies in the area before you can progress only to find out there's some random soldier demon too stupid to realize he's walking into a box.
The world you're put in is very lush and well developed. I would put it on par with Half Life 2 even, in terms of quality. However, it's much less interactive. I really wanted to be able to go into houses and explore many different areas. You really don't get to do any of that with Bullet Witch, unfortunately. The world and levels is actually surprisingly large and there are a lot of places your character can go, this is especially good in a city setting because you get to explore a lot of cool alley ways. However, Bullet Witch left out some very important things for maps this large. Basically, there is no map function. I have basically no idea where I'm going or what my position is and when you're in the forest it's sometimes hard to tell if you've gotten turned around until you find that tank you blew up. It looks like the developers learned from Halo only half the time, a Nav point does show up from time to time to help you out, but it's quite a rarity. With levels this long and large where there is a lot of walking, and you have no map, a Nav point is almost essential to your success without wandering around for an hour like I did in some cases. Don't get me wrong, I like to explore the game; I just don't like it when it's forced on me.
Another part that was really cool about this game was that it has a degree of Role Playing feature in the fact that you get points and you can upgrade your weapon and magic abilities. I thought this was a great feature and I'm really glad they included it so I could choose what I wanted. These options and the different feel of guns or magic that you could use was probably the best part of the game. My favorite magic weapons were the "rose spear" and "lightning". Lightning was absolutely essential for this game when you came across tanks or large enemies. Meteor Shower was awesome in concept, but somewhat impractical because it caused so much destruction. However, the destruction it wreaks is quite awesome. The one problem with the magic is that you have to go through a menu of sorts to pick out what you want to use. However, the game isn't paused while you choose your spell, things just keep going. The most annoying aspect was when you use a big spell like Lightning or Meteor Shower it goes to a cut cinematic every time when you summon the power. Again the enemies don't pause they keep shooting at you and they keep moving, I realize that's more realistic, but it's not useful in a game. This is immensely frustrating with Lightning because after the cut sequence you then have to aim where you want to fire the lightning and the enemy you want to shoot may have moved by then and is now out of range!
Overall this game had its good moments and its bad moments. The story wasn't anything spectacular and the script during the cinematic sequences was pretty terrible at times. Like the guy playing the male love interest (which I don't know why that's even in this game) he has the worst lines. To the point where he just sounds stupid and annoying! Regardless the graphics during the videos was great and rather akin to Final Fantasy's "The Spirits Within" movie. As a gamer I wouldn't expect a huge amount out of this game. It can be frustrating and challenging at times (especially that lengthy final boss battle), but I think the degree of fun I got out of it outweighed those poorer moments. The length is pretty decent and took maybe ten plus hours on easy, granted a lot of that is because I got lost in some areas for a while. Either way, I'd recommend this if you're really itching to play a game of this style. The closing scene kind of left it open for a possible sequel, I can only hope they improve upon some of the parts that made this game annoying, because it certainly has the potential to be quite good.
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