if anyone says that the point of videogames is not to be fun they should be strapped down and forced to watch this game, the DMC series, and the Contra series over and over again until they get that pretense out of their heads.

What exactly do you mean by "fun". Were all those serious shooters like Modern Warfare 2 not fun. You gave them high scores so you must have thought so. A game can be fun and serious. Just take a look at the first Half-Life or Bioshock. They were fun and they had more to them than a shouty man with sideburns kicking people.

edit: ^ he mad, bro

my copy is coming in the mail, and while I'm excited about playing it, I don't know for how long I'll keep it (no co-op...)

funny how the issues with the story in this review versus the gameplay is pretty much exactly one of the few complaints Yahtzee had in his Painkiller review...guess PCF are consistent :p still good tho?

run_forrest_run:
What exactly do you mean by "fun". Were all those serious shooters like Modern Warfare 2 not fun. You gave them high scores so you must have thought so. A game can be fun and serious. Just take a look at the first Half-Life or Bioshock. They were fun and they had more to them than a shouty man with sideburns kicking people.

Methinks you might have missed the point. Nobody is saying that serious shooters can't be entertaining, but there is a very distinct difference in how a game like Bulletstorm defines "fun."

Serious shooters get their entertainment value from being realistic, tactical affairs (though I'll admit that most of the Call of Duty players I've encountered throw tactics out the window).

Non-serious shooters (Bullestorm and Serious Sam, for example) get their entertainment value from pure, cathartic mass-murder. The story is usually ridiculous, it doesn't bother with the potential moral implications of your actions and it doesn't often present itself as "intelligent." That's not to say that the gameplay can't be extremely smart, as Unreal Tournament would gladly prove otherwise.

We have seen an onslaught of "serious" shooters over the last 5-6 years, and while they can be perfectly great games (I love you Half-Life 2), the glory of the "wacky" shooter has fallen by the wayside. This year is definitely heralding their return (Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem and Serious Sam 3? Holy shit), and I couldn't be happier. These games remind us that a game doesn't have to have a complex story and tactical gameplay to be entertaining: sometimes all you need is to kill everything that moves.

...this post turned out a lot longer than I expected.

Downloading off Steam as we speak, fun times are here again

Unfortunately, due to the internet, Bulletstorm is not the first time I've seen a mixture of Dicks and Tits. I repeat, seen, not heard.

Not necessarily true on the bottom line, sadly because all anybody own on my street is rockband and Call of Duty Black ops... I'm already pretty alone.

JeanLuc761:

run_forrest_run:
What exactly do you mean by "fun". Were all those serious shooters like Modern Warfare 2 not fun. You gave them high scores so you must have thought so. A game can be fun and serious. Just take a look at the first Half-Life or Bioshock. They were fun and they had more to them than a shouty man with sideburns kicking people.

Methinks you might have missed the point. Nobody is saying that serious shooters can't be entertaining, but there is a very distinct difference in how a game like Bulletstorm defines "fun."

Serious shooters get their entertainment value from being realistic, tactical affairs (though I'll admit that most of the Call of Duty players I've encountered throw tactics out the window).

Non-serious shooters (Bullestorm and Serious Sam, for example) get their entertainment value from pure, cathartic mass-murder. The story is usually ridiculous, it doesn't bother with the potential moral implications of your actions and it doesn't often present itself as "intelligent." That's not to say that the gameplay can't be extremely smart, as Unreal Tournament would gladly prove otherwise.

We have seen an onslaught of "serious" shooters over the last 5-6 years, and while they can be perfectly great games (I love you Half-Life 2), the glory of the "wacky" shooter has fallen by the wayside. This year is definitely heralding their return (Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem and Serious Sam 3? Holy shit), and I couldn't be happier. These games remind us that a game doesn't have to have a complex story and tactical gameplay to be entertaining: sometimes all you need is to kill everything that moves.

...this post turned out a lot longer than I expected.

Personally, what I think is making Bulletstorm fun is the fact that it isn't taking itself seriously unlike CoD, Halo, Killzone, and Epic's own Gears series. These games are all very competent and technically good games. There's even fun gameplay in each of them. But these games are uber-macho power fantasies that consider fancy themselves as the greats of science fiction or war-time stories.

Bulletstorm, on the other hand, considers itself an uber-macho power fantasy with its tongue firmly in cheek. It reminds me of the works of Edgar Wright (specifically Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). Both of those films involve seriously horrific situations, but they up the insanity and ridiculousness to the annals of parody. What they are, are simply Black Comedies. And that's precisely what Bulletstorm is. A loud obnoxious game with serious undertones making fun of loud obnoxious games who take themselves way too seriously

Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

Looks like a game that will hold me for the 3-4 months before LA Noire and Duke Nukem Forever.

This game is like the Burnout of FPSs

Judging by my not-so-hardcore gamer friends, this game is ridiculously appealing even to people that wouldn't touch hardcore console shooters with a rusty pipe over the internet.

They're female. And I'm an artsy snob. And we still all want this game.

It sounds like a game I am definitely going to wait till that long-summer-lull rolls around to pick up.

I'll just pretend I'm watching an Arnold Movie, but instead of shouting at who'd I'd like him to shoot at, I'll pull the trigger myself.

I'm also really interested in finding out how linear the world is - what I mean is it more-or-less a corridor shooter like most of the CoDs or is it more of an open world experience (not a sandbox, but just sprawling levels)?

Actually, shitting dick tits have existed long before Bulletstorm came around.

Excellent ending, haha. Appropriate song. well timed too

Solid review I appreciate it. However, when you do another review, go ahead and don't start off by calling everyone interested in this game a lifeless slouch. Makes escapist look bad, and even more uninviting.

i should probably get this game

Mr. Pitts, you're having entirely too much fun. Probably not a popular man around the office just now. ;)

jonyboy13:
Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

The game gives you less points for doing the same type of kills consecutively. If you're creative with each kills, the points get labelled with "NEW", and you have a higher point for it. Kinda like in PGR/Burnout with the driving tricks.

And you don't get ranked up.

jonyboy13:
Well, it does look fun but a really big turn off is that you get points for every Go damn thing you do. Which is kind of absurb considering they were laughing at a certain FPS that gives rank up every time you kill someone.

They were making fun of the extra-serious, super-tough, man-up, military-styled attitude of that FPS, not of the ranking up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm against tacked on MP and love me some singleplayer games, but this is a corridor shooter with some cool elements, it's fun but it's not worth full price in this day and age, same goes for enslaved.

One must wonder were they get all the bullets. ¬,¬

nice touch with the shotgun syncing with the music at the end.

looks fun!! wanna try now

Russ Pitts:
Epic's latest redefines the word "fun."

Epic has never redefined the word fun.
And dick tits? That's nothing, try shitting dick nipple... Which is a real thing that I do not encourage you to google.

OT: Nice review. Was on the fence about this one, am now considering my financed to see if I can actually get it.

I admit I haven't played the full game yet (it doesn't come out over here until Friday) but from what I've seen of it the story doesn't look like something to be taken seriously. It comes across as a parody of modern FPSs. Granted it's not a good idea to start the story with a 5 minute cutsene but I reckon I could let that slip.

ALPHATT:
how is this a buy title? I mean sure it's fun but rent it for a free weekend and you're gonna finisht he whole thing, it's worth a few replays but why bother.

It should be worth replaying a few times is you want to try and get all the Skillshots and multiplayer should considerably add to the re-playability if it has lasting appeal. That said not everyone's in to that sort of thing so to each his own I guess.

ALPHATT:
The fun shooter of the year is gonna be Duke nukem forever with allegedly longer SP, historical value and MP.

You make a statement of certainty about a game that isn't even out yet. Just pointing that out. Again to each his own but I'm more interested in Bulletstorm than DNF. Not that it looks bad or anything but it just looks like a Current Gen Duke Nukem 3D which was admittedly better then your average FPS but not really a game changer at least by today's standards. It just doesn't look lke anything special while Bulletstorm looks like something more refreshing with creative weapons and a system which encourages killings your enemies a number of different ways.

In regard to the video it was a pretty good list but some of the kills seemed kinda out of place like Vertigo or Head Shot. Those are the sort of kills you get in just about every FPS and are pretty generic these days especially when compared to the kinds of things you can do in the Demo alone.

Man, dicktits is mainstream now. Guess I'll have to stick with karateboner.

This game seems fun!