There was really no time for second impressions... it is a ridiculously short, ridiculously linear, ridiculously simple... well... ridiculous game.

I normally go into specific details about what has caused me to form my opinions, but I don't know that I can do so good a job of that this time. EVERYTHING about Bullet Witch is mediocre, at best, and could even have a tough time competing with last generation titles. There isn't really anything to be impressed with, so the only satisfaction I can receive out of the time I spent playing it is being able to warn others against wasting their own time.

I'll try to walk through the usual criteria...

Graphically, the character concept of Alicia, the Bullet Witch, is very nice but the execution leaves me wanting. In an apparent attempt to make everything she does snesual, none of her movements look natural and some are even borderline impossible... and that's forgetting that she is slinging a very large gun around with one hand. While their simple animations are relatively unflawed, compared to the extravagent detail of Alicia, all of the other characters in the game suffer greatly in the costuming department. The Geists and other baddies have been lovingly painted in flayed skin and made to look creepy... but there is little to no variety, so all of the assault rifle carrying Geists look like this and all of the shotgun carrying Geists look like that and all the sniper Geists have this body and the LTs have barrets. With the exception of some alternate faces only really discernable during cutscenes, all of the human Resistance soldiers look identical. The handful of demons you will face are unimaginative. Walnut Heads are enormous floating brains, which glow a certain colored so you know which magical barrier will go down when you kill them and whose normal sized bodies hang beneath. Gigas are towering giants who look like melted wax sculptures with a pulsating tumor over their heart and a massive gatling cannon bolted to one arm. There are a few others like the Screamers and possessed/infected humans who dash about all cracked out and gibbering... but they aren't worth more mention than that.

Scores are no better in the sound department, with the assorted combat effects just not sounding right and the various voices often being inaudible thanks to other noise drowning them out or just kewl effects to make them sound demonic resulting in incomprehensible speech. The voice acting during the cutscenes is little better and, again, Alicia's quality is SO much higher than anything else but the attempt to make her sensual and mysterious doesn't work out despite a nice sounding voice. The dialogue is disturbingly amateur.

Gameplay is lacking. Control-wise, the fairly standard layout of how you move around, look around, jump around, switch weapons, and shoot at things is there but interacting with your magical abilities is clunky. Pressing either bumper scrolls through the three submenus, each with three spells assigned to X, B, or A and Y to cancel magic use. You can still move and shoot and everything else with the menus up, but it is distracting and thus not easy to cast dynamically during a firefight. Playing the game is often annoying and sometimes frustrating. Not in difficulty, but in sheer playability. Your crosshair offers no indication of where your shots will actually land and someone apparently thought that bullets travel slowly through the air, making you lead your targets by unrealistic distances. Combine that with an AI that occasionally likes to sidestep back and forth at speed, bouncing around like a spider monkey on pixi stix and meth, and the difficulty of putting even a few shells into a simple Geist trooper can get obnoxious. Your spells fair little better, most of which are an interesting change of pace but ultimately not as effective as just shooting your starting machinegun. While the third tier of your magic, the massive effect/let's mess up everything on screen spells, are devasting but only Lightning Bolt is truly aimable with any efficiency.

As you complete each level you are ranked and score some points with which to upgrade your hp/mp, guns, or magic. In effect, this is pointless as the enemies all benefit from the mysterious video game rule of reality and get stronger right along with you. Upgrading your machinegun or buying and upgrading some of the other gun options just serves to keep you escalating with the increasing toughness of your foes and it still takes just as much ammo to bring them down throughout the game. All of your upgrades do carry on after beating the game, so you can use them from the beginning of your next play-through... but you must play through the levels in a linear fashion to gain any more points as stage select just lets you improve your rankings without reward. There are also some downloadable challenge missions but even a few bucks is too much more to pay for expanding this game.

Finally, the story. It is well told, if a bit lame. The world is in ruins after numerous catastrophes and an invasion of demons. It turns out, a truly desperate man delved into dark magicks and chose to sacrifice himself at a place of power in order to resurrect is beloved daughter, who had died in a plane accident. His sacrifice opened a portal that has allowed of this to happen. Alicia, it so happens, is that daughter... back from the dead and all growed up... and she is burdened by the knowledge that all of the untold misery, destruction, and horror is because of her. If you are paying attention, you can piece this together as the cutscenes unfold but it is not blatantly spelled out for you until late in the game, which was a good try. The problems are that a lot of things just don't make sense and that a LOT goes unexplained. Why is Alicia now a witch? What is the deal with her broom-looking uber gun? What is that dark voice that talks to her throughout the game? Why is this one major demon (the focus of her hunt through the game) so important to her?

Two days. Gamefly sent it to me and I had it for two days, amounting to maybe 8-10 hours of play, before sending it back this morning. I need to go check my GameQ, because two stinkers in a row has me needing something of qualit next.