BPM: Bullets Per Minute, developed and published by Awe Interactive, is a First-person shooter that is different from other FPS games. With its pumping beats and fast-paced atmosphere, this rhythm-based, rogue-like FPS will have you nodding your head to the sick beats to defeat various foes that lay in your wake. If you’re not familiar with rhythm-based games, the premise is simple. With the trusty weapon that you wield like a finely tuned instrument of death, you must dodge, jump, reload and fire your gun to the beats of the music at enemies.

So to the many FPS veterans, it may take some time to get used to the controls as my internal instinct was to start blasting as soon as I encountered anything remotely living. The game’s story may be non-existent, but then it seems to take inspiration from Norse mythology to some extent and feels a little like a Doom game.

With this rock opera of a game, Bullets Per Minute’s gameplay had me at a disadvantage at the start, as getting used to the controls and to the fact you could only fire your weapon and reload to the beat, had me dying regularly in the first few couples of rooms. After a while though and a few adjustments to my approach, having the music turned up loud and headbanging to the tunes was my best tactic to succeed.

As this is a rogue-ish game, dying will be a common thing for beginners, especially trying to overcome your instincts. The game does give you a helping hand at times though, as the maps are procedurally generated. It offers you various rooms that can provide help, in the way of unlockable chests, along with merchants that can also be encountered. These can take the form of a giant angelic chicken or a blacksmith that is an armour wearing T-Rex, both offering items that can help aid your journey.

You are limited in the way of weapons though, as you can only have one weapon at a time, with some guns requiring more than one movement to the beat to reload these weapons. This goes back to the controls system that takes time to get used too. One of the best power-ups I found was unlimited ammo, which eliminated the need for reloading. Power-ups were not the only items found in the game; various armour that can give many other abilities such as an increase in gold drops or more armour protection for battle.

There is a currency in the game in the form of gold coins that can be used to purchase health potions and weapons by going back to the merchants; you can encounter a bank of sorts where you can deposit your coins that can be used in other runs if you die.

With the game levels being procedurally generated, many rooms do seem to look and feel the same with this red and yellow tinge that dominates throughout but it gets broken up with the merchant’s rooms and hidden areas for extra loot. The variety of enemies are interesting with the early stages having bats and slugs but gradually upping the ante with fire elementals and giant crabs, just to name a few. The bosses at the end of each stage are a challenge as they take some time to figure out how to defeat them.

With the learning curve to overcome in this, BPM itself is a perfect trainer for FPS hardcore fans. As you would already guess the game’s music as its a very important part to the games function, getting used to the beat is easy and the guitar riffs make it immensely enjoyable to listen to as well but I would love the ability to add my music as listening to the same tune over and over again can become a little repetitive, even if it is a bad ass track.

Overall, BPM: Bullets Per Minute is a unique game that’s perfect for those who call for a challenge in your FPS games. I can see the similarities to Doom but it holds its own as a challenging experience, especially when you get right into a rhythm and the perfect timing just sings to you in pure awe all the while wielding a shotgun like a death-dealing instrument. I think that’s what developers were going for; a symphony of destruction. I think they have achieved that exceptionally well in this rock opera of a game that Is.. BPM.

Written by: Simon Hayward