You Don't Have to Try So Hard, Bulletstorm

People Can Fly and Epic Games' newest project is something called Bulletstorm, a slick little number that adds a dimension of style and skill to the typical FPS mold, rewarding you for finishing your enemies in the most amazing and ridiculous ways. Cliffy B hopes this addition will endear Bulletstorm to the refined FPS gamer, and if that won't reel 'em in, the lowbrow humor will!

In its favor, Bulletstorm features a great art style, lovingly detailed, beautifully rendered locales, and hectic action which focuses not only on putting your target down, but humiliating them, and doing it with flair. Also, giant machines and giant dinosaurs. If the two come together at any point, this could obviously be a candidate for game of the year.

With so much going for it already, why does it seem that People Can Fly and Epic are trying much too hard to give the game an edgy, shit-talking personality? "You scared the dick off me", "son of a dick", and "strap that dildo on" are just some of the choice one-liners heard, a true homage to the art of video game writing. The banter between characters seems to stay at this level of human regression throughout. So one must ask oneself, can I sit through six to eight hours of mind-numbing chatter about dicks, dildos, farting, et al? I have a hard enough time getting through 30 minutes of South Park.

These script choices makes me question what kind of audience Bulletstorm is aimed toward. Growing up, games like Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior cracked me up with their use of random swear words, urinating, farting, and adult themes. Though as a teenager at the time, things of that sort appealed to my childish sense of humor. Now, in my late 20s, the fart jokes and cursing for the sake of cursing don't have the same draw. I don't want to say this decision is alienating mature gamers, because I'm sure most will play Bulletstorm regardless, on the strength of the game itself, but the target demographic most definitely has to be a younger crowd. More specifically, the kid who's on the limited edition Halo: Reach Xbox 360 paid for by mum, who at 2am insults everyone in his Team Slayer game with all the cuss words in his narrow vernacular. That's the type of person who hears "what the dick" and has a revelation to start using the phrase with his friends in the school yard the next day.

I guess I'm a fickle gamer; some decisions that most don't even notice can rub me the wrong way. I had a hard time playing more than 20 minutes of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West because I couldn't deal with controlling a Jersey Shore reject. I have a feeling I'll have a similar problem with Bulletstorm, because the substance of a well written story and script is infinitely more appealing than saying dick 12 times in a under a minute. Yet in its vast beauty, and it's potential for insane fun, I fear I may have to suffer through the writing of pre-pubescent, rage-repressed, Halo Matchmaking momma's boys.