I'll be back: Bulletstorm revisited

In the past weeks, I have gotten to play Echoes and Anarchy in Bulletstorm.  Here are my takes:

Echoes: It's Bulletstorm without the dialog, cinematics, and walk long walks between battlefields.  Hooray!
Also, you start out with full ammo in your loadout with three charge shots and three thumpers.  All of these get set back to full whenever you link into a dropkit.  What's not to like?

Anarchy: Just what I expected.  The Bulletstorm formula holds up surprisingly well in a smash-tv sort of arena brawl.  This good style of gameplay comes with a high discipline requirement in stark contrast to the game's generally chaotic gameplay.  In order to make any meaningful progression through the constant waves of enemies, you are asked- nay required- to listen to your teammates; a surprising concept coming from a game that could have been designed by orks.

Gork and Mork help you if even one person on your team is mucking about.

At this point I have played a mixture of styles on each of the maps.  Here is what I have learned about the possible team compositions assuming that you do not have any means to communicate verbally with anonymous teammates (because of the madness-inducing chatter coming from the other end of that mic):

You + someone you know and trust --> Nirvana:
The way the game was meant to be played.  You work together to pull off the team skillshots when necessary, and sometimes you'll just happen to make some awesome flukes.  It's especially good if you can coordinate when to activate the thumper or blood symphony as these actions are time-sensitive and have the potential for high point yields. Having said that, my advice to newcomers to this mode is to make sure that you have at least one person with you who has beaten the campaign and to whom you will all defer (at least a little bit).  Everything in anarchy is time-sensitive, so you lose your rhythm and it breaks up the pace if you have to look up how to perform certain kills in the skillshot database.  Therefore, it helps to have one dedicated lexicon of murder variety to explain what a certain kill is and/or tell someone to stand in a certain spot and leash an enemy while he teaches by murder-example.  In this situation, however, it is imperative that you listen to a) when someone notices that there's an enemy with the team skillshot icon over his head and b) when the murder-lexicon explains the plan.  This strategy has worked with a number of different people, is easy to pick up, and makes a two person party completely viable in this game mode.  When you have four people who can all communicate, hilarity will ensue, but everybody'd better make sure that each individual knows what he or she is doing and to hold off when someone announces the intention to use the thumper or blood symphony.

You + someone you know and trust + 2 anonymous punks --> Semi-Heretical:
You've got a good thing going, but then someone has to go and mess it up.  While you and your teammate are executing your precisely coordinated executions, the biggest challenge is getting to the kills before your pair of lone wolves do and try to take all the apples for themselves.  The enemy is the least of your worries.


You + 3 anonymous punks -->  Do not attempt: