contingent of disfigured gun-toting ghouls is shooting at me, a giant floating brain is telekinetically whipping cars, and two tanks block any forward progress. Just when my defeat seems unavoidable, a flock of ravens swoops in and tries to tear my enemies apart. While they are distracted, I motion to the sky, which suddenly grows dark and rumbles with electricity. Seconds later, a flash of lightning reduces everything to smoking rubble, leaving me free to resume my unholy hunt.

If you pick out a few isolated moments, it is possible to make Bullet Witch sound cool. Scenarios like the one just described do happen during the course of the game, but they aren’t representative of the whole experience. A more realistic account of how the game actually proceeds would read something like this: I see some enemies, and I shoot them with my gun. Then I hit a barrier. I run around searching for enemies to shoot so the barrier disappears. Sometimes I fight a boss.

The combination of gunplay and magic has potential, but the way Bullet Witch melds them is extremely uneven. The spell interface is so clunky that it prevents any of your cool powers from naturally flowing into the action, so the gameplay basically becomes a repetitive gunfest with too few enemy types. When situations arise that let you take advantage of your supernaural abilities, they just seem staged. The aftermath of a lightning strike or meteor shower may look awesome, but these powers are really only practical under specific circumstances.

Occasional spikes of excitement in the otherwise average missions keep Bullet Witch from being a complete waste of time. It’s always cool to hurl a piece of wreckage into a group of baddies, and upgrading your gun to include different firing modes adds a little bit of depth to the combat. I can’t deny that the enemies look pretty cool, but the levels they inhabit are poorly designed and boring.

With a better magic system and more intuitive combat interface, this game could have delivered a lot of thrills. As it is, there is so much mindless shooting and wandering in Bullet Witch that when you actually are having fun, it feels accidental.