Sometimes you take your gaming seriously. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes, someone takes it seriously for you, while they’re also not. I can’t decide where Bulletstorm lies on this mobius continuum.

The way I see it, it’s an achievement whore’s FPS that possibly thinks that it’s funnier then it is. Like the drunk guy at the end of the bar who thinks he’s doing a one man stand-up routine that’s getting raucous applause. In truth, he’s just drunk, and looks like an ass.

Derp Derp Derp

Lick the boot of KING DERP!

I can’t say that I ever expected much from Bulletstorm’s pedigree. First, there was this guy, King Derp or whatever his name is. I don’t usually identify with my avatar in these games, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend X hours running around a virtual world with that hair and that expression.

Second, it’s got over-caffeinated Epic pitchman Cliff Bleszinski, patron saint of potty-mouthed XBL FPSers. Thirdly, if you could pass raw testosterone through a visualizer, it’d probably end up looking something like this:

I think Epic is trying too hard to be “counter culture” with Bulletstorm. It looks pretty, to be sure. But their “Duty Calls” parody game? Necessary? No. Juvenile? Absolutely. Surprising? Sadly, not really.

In all seriousness, though, when I saw the video above, the thing that jumped out at me were the achievements that were blowing about the screen like leaves on the wind. Does the game even have a story? Not that FPS titles are generally heavy on decent plot, but I got the feeling that Epic skipped the nuanced storyline as a reason for pushing on in favor of the modern day Skinnerian, the meaningless achievement. Aside from the graphics, production time and certainly shelf price, I don’t see much here that makes me believe this is anything more then “FarmVille With Sass”.