By John Walker on June 15th, 2010 at 2:31 am.
The noise! The noise! Make it all stop! Last year’s E3 Monday saw me safely hidden on an aeroplane from Seattle to LA, having just fished out the big scoop on Left 4 Dead 2. And how pleased everyone was! This year’s E3 Monday sees me in my house, writing They’re Back for PCG a day late. How times have changed. But in filtering through the noise of Microsoft’s daft-looking Kinnn3ckt, or whatever it’s called, Ubisoft’s announcing thirty-million games, and EA shocking the world by announcing there’s to be another Need For Speed game, came one loud cry: “Where’d this giant dick come from?!” That was Bulletstorm.
Bulletstorm, as you may have detected from its name, isn’t exactly embracing subtle. It’s the gaming equivalent of having a joke explained to you with flash cards and sound effects. And it looks pretty damned awesome. This is a game which proudly boasts dialogue like:
“I DO NOT SPEAK TRAIN!”
We saw footage of it last month, but nothing quite as ludicrously overblown and megadramatic as this. Please, I wish to focus your attention on the tether. Then the ensuing bits of tummy and leg.
15/06/2010 at 02:35 Psychopomp says:
This game is ludicrous, silly, and fucking stupid.
I must have it.
15/06/2010 at 02:42 Rohit says:
Hope there’s a demo.
Yeah, probably only for consoles.
15/06/2010 at 03:04 Bowlby says:
Agreed.
15/06/2010 at 12:03 Peter Radiator Full Pig says:
I wanted it before this trailer, but now im not so sure.
The all powerful foot makes too many apperances.
16/06/2010 at 05:07 BabelFish says:
It’s good to see the guys at people can fly still have what made painkiller so unique. I was sad to see them fall off the face of the planet after that game.
Does anyone else think the animation of the foot bears striking resemblance to the mighty foot of duke nukem fame?
15/06/2010 at 02:53 Brendy_C says:
“Last train out of explosion town.”
This game is what Arnie would want.
16/06/2010 at 00:44 BeamSplashX says:
“Last Train out of Explosiontown” happens to be my favorite children’s tale.
15/06/2010 at 02:53 The_B says:
Another great line was “LETS MEGACHARGE WITH FRIED CHICKEN” -I don’t think that sentence even makes sense.
15/06/2010 at 05:35 Nick says:
I think it was ‘looks’ rather than ‘lets’, it would at least make sense then. Cause he was fat. Geddit?
15/06/2010 at 16:01 DrGonzo says:
It was infact, “Then let’s megacharge with a dozen buckets of fried Chicken!”
16/06/2010 at 15:48 Essell says:
The line was “(he) looks megacharged with a dozen buckets of fried chicken!” :)
15/06/2010 at 03:02 mcnostril says:
There is only one appropriate response to this footage:
YES.
15/06/2010 at 03:10 Miker says:
Looks like the Painkiller guys are putting themselves to good use. Hopefully this gets released on the same day as the console versions.
15/06/2010 at 03:13 Jason Moyer says:
Want
15/06/2010 at 03:23 thatvoice says:
I swear to god I’ve heard that main actors voice in some other generic shooter before.. either that or the voice litterally is that strongly generic.
15/06/2010 at 03:30 Spectre-7 says:
Does the name Spike Spiegel mean anything to you?
15/06/2010 at 04:23 Rohit says:
I was thinking Shishio
15/06/2010 at 04:52 Psychopomp says:
The voice isn’t generic. The man is in everything.
15/06/2010 at 05:38 Nick says:
Spike is where I most recognize the voice from, certainly.
15/06/2010 at 08:40 Koozer says:
It reminded me of one of the space chaps out of Dawn of War II.
15/06/2010 at 08:43 Haywire says:
The American soldier in the nazi zombies part of COD:WAW, when he called the big fatty a freakbag I was sure of it.
15/06/2010 at 12:04 Dominic White says:
That, friends, is the voice of Steve Blum. Along with Nolan North, those two are in EVERY SINGLE GAME EVER MADE.
Just look those names up on IMDB and your minds will be blown.
16/06/2010 at 20:19 Blackberries says:
He played Cyrus in DoW II, I believe. It was bothering me all through the trailer too.
15/06/2010 at 03:42 pupsikaso says:
Why did I receive a box for username and password saying gametrailers is requesting me to log in?
15/06/2010 at 03:43 GT3000 says:
Hit cancel a few times. It’ll disappear.
15/06/2010 at 03:44 bhlaab says:
It looks a bit too CoD-narrow. I hope we get to play around and score some points in Painkiller-style killrooms instead of putzing forward to each new setpiece. The idea of a turret segment in a people can fly game is sad
15/06/2010 at 03:58 TenjouUtena says:
There seems to be something wonky with the perspective. Like objects seem to get too close too quickly.
15/06/2010 at 19:59 Tarqon says:
That’s what console FOV looks like, essentially your viewing angle is only about 60 degrees, which looks ok if you’re sitting a couple of meters away from your TV, but utterly horrible up close on a computer screen.
Try playing Modern warfare 1 on the default setting for instance, you’ll want to gouge your eyes out.
15/06/2010 at 04:20 Muzman says:
I was thinking the other day (and it’s hardly a novel thought) that games are a pretty big obstacle to making dodgy sci-fi action films like Running Man or Cyborg or Universal Soldier these days. The thunder of movies in that area has been completely stolen.
The people I was talking with at the time weren’t so sure it was all over. I’ll just show them this I think.
17/06/2010 at 10:51 TeeJay says:
I wonder how long before developers start releasing their own feature-length machinima alongside their games, for the more passive “I just like watching” audience segment?
15/06/2010 at 04:25 Robble says:
“looks” not “lets” and there’s a D at the end of mega charge. Hope that helps.
15/06/2010 at 04:50 TRS-80 says:
Gears of Borderlands.
15/06/2010 at 04:56 Nobody Important says:
I loved Black, which I hear this is a direct recreation of. I’ll still go back and boot up the PS2 for Black. Amazing game.
15/06/2010 at 05:51 internisus says:
@Nobody Important: I believe you are thinking of Body Count, which is the spiritual successor to Black. This game is being made by Cliff Bleszinski’s Epic Gears of War people supervising People Can Fly, who are in Poland, iirc.
Anyway! I watched just about every presentation today live, and the above footage is one of… say, 3 worthwhile things that happened. So go watch it again. Try to savor it.
15/06/2010 at 05:56 Nobody Important says:
Sorry, that’s not Bulletstorm, that’s Bodycount. This game looks better than that.
15/06/2010 at 05:57 Nobody Important says:
Ugh, he beat me by like five minutes. LAME.
15/06/2010 at 05:07 Max says:
Looks cool, but man is it painful watching people play shooters on consoles. That guy spent a good amount of time shooting at nothing.
17/06/2010 at 05:17 jsdn says:
That’s what it looks like when anyone plays console shooters.
Wonder why…
15/06/2010 at 05:12 JuJuCam says:
It’s like the devs saw Just Cause 2 and said “No, not crazy enough”. Do want.
15/06/2010 at 05:27 DarkFenix says:
And watched Commando and said “No, not cheesy enough and not enough one liners”.
Serious Sam can fuck right off, here’s a game that not only says “here’s some toys, go nuts”, but keeps score as you do it.
17/06/2010 at 10:54 TeeJay says:
It has the toys and one-liners but doesn’ look like it has the wide-open “dance of death”-style levels that Serious Sam had.
15/06/2010 at 05:15 pupsikaso says:
Hm, why is there so much coverage for console games that, yes, will probably have PC ports, but undoubtedly horrible bad ones?
15/06/2010 at 08:48 Koozer says:
Because this features explodey-guns and giant wheels of dustyness. That wheel impressed me.
15/06/2010 at 15:29 Dominic White says:
Okay, please provide us with reportage of PC-exclusives. I’m sure we’ll be drowning in big E3 reveals.
15/06/2010 at 05:35 ohnoabear says:
Steve Blum is probably in half the games and anime that get English voices.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0089710/
15/06/2010 at 05:37 ohnoabear says:
Should be a reply to thatvoice, above.
Failed.
15/06/2010 at 06:20 Psychopomp says:
Between him, Phil La Marr, and Mark Hamill, I think they play everyone ever in everything.
16/06/2010 at 04:47 MadMatty says:
Oh my- he´s exceedingly horrible- and so popular, that if he´d just go away,
voice acting in games on average would improve about 30% in quality
15/06/2010 at 06:06 Phil H says:
I’m the first to comment on “You nearly scared my dick off!” ?
God, this was by far THE BEST part of all of today’s press conferences.
15/06/2010 at 06:09 Ziv says:
oh god it looks good.
I MUST HAVE IT.
15/06/2010 at 06:09 Phil H says:
“You scared the dick off me” rather.
15/06/2010 at 06:16 Wedge says:
It had been a while since I heard good ol’ Stevie J Blum shouting around in a game. This looks agreeable I suppose, I hope there’s some room for creativity with the magical killination points, instead of everything just being a few canned special powers you can do. I worry the tether beam thing will see the full range of it’s potential, being made for a console game and all. Though I guess Red Faction 3 let me do quite whatever I felt despite that being a console game… shame where they seem to be headed with the next game in that series.
15/06/2010 at 06:43 Kazang says:
FPS games played on a console pad are a crime against nature. But having said that this game looks fucking awesome and I hope they get the PC release right.
The straight up fun shooter genre is pretty painfully small these days, the world needs more games like Painkiller.
15/06/2010 at 06:58 The Pink Ninja says:
Meh, too subtle and under-played for my tastes…
15/06/2010 at 08:33 Thiefsie says:
I see what you did there!
Looks like prey, with more duke, and more Epic.
mmmmm watching a poor console player shooting at the floor half the time is very painful though.
15/06/2010 at 08:51 Koozer says:
That was a poor console player? God I’m out of practice since Perfect Dark with these sticks of analogy.
15/06/2010 at 10:08 Adrian says:
I also thought the guy in the video played rather good which is probably because he practiced this level a lot. I mean the way he takes out that room with the power generator (?) looks good but it seems like he played it before and knows where the enemies are.
Still for a shooter this is horrible but he did the best he could on a console.
15/06/2010 at 10:18 Thiefsie says:
poor obviously because the young chap can’t afford a decent computer as opposed to a huge plasma and 360 combo ;-)
15/06/2010 at 07:11 Down Rodeo says:
“Where the dick did he come from?!”
“I predict getting the fuck outta here!”
Good? Bad? I know not. Deary me… Who knows, it could be awesome. Not like Epic to go tongue-in-cheek though, after Gears of Seriousness.
15/06/2010 at 07:21 Chiller says:
Huh, seems oddly generic. And brown.
15/06/2010 at 07:24 Tei says:
Amazing. I hope support different type of ways to play it (cover, not cover). And this looks like one of these type of games that is more fun, if YOU are a fun person.
15/06/2010 at 07:39 Stompywitch says:
Looks like fun, even with the presence of Generic Grim Video Game Dude. Here’s hoping that there’s a PC version as well as just consoles.
15/06/2010 at 08:40 mrpier says:
ooh, vacuums
15/06/2010 at 09:44 Adrian says:
Sluggish aiming, a duck-behind-cover system of some sorts (or is he just using a slide-over-the-floor attack? i can’t tell) and literaly no vertical gameplay (when that flying robot showed up right at the beginning it looked like he couldn’t lift his weapon to shoot at it)
Everything else looks so much fun im pissed the shooting will suck :(. I mean just look at that last scene when he has the mingun and hurls all those enemies in the air he only half manages to hit 4 targets. with a mouse and a keyboard even the most novice players could have hit all targets in the air with ease.
15/06/2010 at 09:45 marilena says:
Personally, I thought the best line was “I predict an imminent getting the fuck out of here”.
The game looks a lot better than I imagined based on the coverage it has been receiving. It’s crazy, but it looks stunning and visually more imaginative than other recent games. The place where they start is very cool looking, with lots of nice details, and the wheel of death is actually awesome.
It does have a problem that I see in all People Can Fly’s games – the hits don’t register very well on the enemies and the game isn’t very satisfying in that regard. Even once the enemy is killed with some nifty combo, he doesn’t look very damaged.
15/06/2010 at 10:07 Riaktion says:
Holy pants, that looks awesome.
Painkiller was only ok in the end, this looks like its been turned up to 11
15/06/2010 at 11:25 True_Love says:
This might not be Duke, it might not be “Blood”, but it damn well is the first game in YEARS that FINALLY caters to what I believe a shooter should be like:
Over the top, bloody, filled with grunts and comments from the protagonist, and with ridiculous violence and endless ammo.
Now if they can make it not suck engine and bug-wise, I’m all game.
MOAR!
15/06/2010 at 11:27 True_Love says:
Edit: My bad, it looks more like Painkiller after checking out some more videos, but with the added stuff mentioned above.
Still, it should do in a pinch.
*fondly remembers the gauntlet*
15/06/2010 at 11:29 WaitWhat says:
Since when have we gone from shooters getting “I wonder if they’re gonna port it to consoles to milk it for cash, despite that being sh!t for control with a gamepad” to “I hope they make this for pc”?
Sad, sad, sad.
15/06/2010 at 12:34 DrazharLn says:
Well, you see there are good games on consoles, we want the ones that would work as well/better on PC on PC.
That’s about it.
15/06/2010 at 11:29 Ian says:
That looks like the most first-person-kicking-people-into-thing I’ve seen since Sir Kicksalot Deathboot Of Might And Magic.
15/06/2010 at 11:51 deadsexy says:
After watching all 3 press conferences yesterday, I (aside from being completely underwhelmed) think I can never again react to things flying towards my face.
15/06/2010 at 12:34 Dominic White says:
That looks fun.
No, I’m not some dumb console kiddie. I’ve been playing PC FPS’s since pre-Wolfenstein-3D. Catacomb Abyss, anyone?
It just looks fun. Ridiculous weapons, goofy enemies, slow-mo-gravity-tether, absurd one-liners all the time. It just looks fun. Probably not going to be a keeper, but it looks like a fine rental.
15/06/2010 at 12:43 Web Cole says:
A strange combination of awesome and easy?
15/06/2010 at 12:47 Dominic White says:
A lot of presentation videos at this E3 have obviously had god-mode on. Check out the Dead Space 2 gameplay stuff, where the player gets mauled horribly, yet his health bar never goes down.
15/06/2010 at 13:12 Blurr11 says:
Any one else seeing this as a mix of serious sam for guns and chat borderlands for enemies and gears of war for general cut sceneyness (thats not a word)
15/06/2010 at 13:35 Davie says:
Oh my god.
It’s like the setting of Borderlands combined with the combos of God of War, the machismo of Unreal Tournament, and the charming, ludicrous, hamtastic voice acting of Just Cause 2. Stupid? Yes. Infantile? Yes. Shallow? Yes. I want it so much.
15/06/2010 at 14:09 Shadowcat says:
The reason you’re the first to comment is that everyone else remembered that it was the article’s title.
15/06/2010 at 15:07 Rane2k says:
Looks rather nice, I hope they make a good PC version.
Coming from the makers of Painkiller is also a plus, I still often go back to that and play a few of the levels when I need a bit of mindless swarm-killing. :-)
(Best games for that are still DooM 2 and Quake 1 though.)
15/06/2010 at 16:18 KamikazeGenes says:
I believe the story/dialogue is (re)written by Rick Remender, him of the awesome space pulp comic ‘Fear Agent’ which I really love. Looking forward to this one, but flashes of DMMM came up with all the kicking.
15/06/2010 at 18:29 El_MUERkO says:
Borderlands for Gears of War fans (Dickheads)
15/06/2010 at 20:58 Mman says:
So I take it you’re this game’s biggest fan?
15/06/2010 at 20:56 Mman says:
I was sceptical of this game at first as I was worried Painkiller might have just been a fluke, but they’ve managed to convince me otherwise. It even looked a lot better than the early stuff suggested. My only worry from the footage is that the default machine gun seemed a bit wimpy for a game like this (especially compared to that grenade launcher thing).
Plus promoting the fact they have a “professional writer” and then having dialogue like that just makes it better.
15/06/2010 at 22:33 Jimbo says:
I love how the dumbest shooter in years is the game that gets an entirely positive comment thread. Love it.
15/06/2010 at 22:37 Vinraith says:
There’s a lot to be said for a game that makes no pretense of being anything other than what it is.
15/06/2010 at 22:43 Jimbo says:
I guess you can’t have unreasonable expectations if you have no expectations.
16/06/2010 at 11:34 Rane2k says:
(Hope the reply thing works, this is for Jimbo & Vinraith. *sacrifices goat to the reply button god*)
No expectations is not exactly right, here´s what I want:
- Good level design
- Meaty combat, which includes satisfying gunplay (maybe not only variations of machine guns? Hello military shooters.), fast movement and dodging.
- Interesting and challenging enemies (Seriously, when did developers start to think that “man with gun”, “man with different gun” and “some vehicle” are enough enemy types?)
Most shooters in recent years (that I played) failed in at least one of those categories.
15/06/2010 at 23:38 airtekh says:
Looks good. No footage of the man-eating plants yet though :(
I can see that dialogue getting very old, very quickly.