Bulletstorm Catch-All

Echo sounds cool. This game sounds more and more like what I know of The Club every time I hear about it. Just more over the top.

So, people who are already planning on getting this - what platform are you looking at?

If I picked it up, it'll be for the PC. Waiting on the demo to sell me. The concept is great but I haven't seen enough to get me properly excited.

imbiginjapan wrote:

So, people who are already planning on getting this - what platform are you looking at?

I am eagerly anticipating my Gears of War 3 beta access on 360.

I was so down until I heard the character's speak. Worse yet, the writers had their own trailer in which they go on for 3 minutes about how awesome it is to swear. Seriously? I may be entering Get Off My Lawn territory, but now when I hear that the lead writer on a project made their name in comic books I approach the material with apprehension rather than gusto.

I loved Painkiller inside out. Bought the expansions, entered a contest and won an autographed copy, t-shirt, CD etc. It's still an awesome game so it'll be a real shame if the lame characters drive me away from its spiritual successor.

gains wrote:

I was so down until I heard the character's speak. Worse yet, the writers had their own trailer in which they go on for 3 minutes about how awesome it is to swear. Seriously? I may be entering Get Off My Lawn territory, but now when I hear that the lead writer on a project made their name in comic books I approach the material with apprehension rather than gusto.

I loved Painkiller inside out. Bought the expansions, entered a contest and won an autographed copy, t-shirt, CD etc. It's still an awesome game so it'll be a real shame if the lame characters drive me away from its spiritual successor.

There is nothing worse than lousy comedy and thus I share your concerns. I have also reached the age where I am not sure exposure to this stuff is particularly enriching for kids, yet I know boys of a certain age will eat this stuff up*. The game mechanics look great, but I agree that the juvenile tone in game and even more so in the marketing is off-putting (for another recent example of this check out the Dead Space 2 thread.). I am trying to remain optimistic, but will probably play with a headset just to spare my wife's sensibilities.

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Thin_J wrote:

I don't find their advertising funny, but seriously? We're going to whine about dialogue in a game where the mechanics center around how many twisted ways you can kick, whip, and otherwise dismember and destroy enemies? A game where shooting someone right up the rear with some kind of gun can cause a firey death fart? Really?

I mean, I just can't wrap my head around it.

It's just more evidence of how frickin backwards our country is I guess. Senseless violence? Fun! Senseless harsh language? Won't someone think of the children?

OH GOD THERE'S A BOOB ON TV SOMEONE DECLARE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY.

:P

Geez. I just think the whole dialogue thing has the potential to be painfully unfunny. It can annoy me that kids are consuming drivel without assuming that I think said drivel should be banned.

I don't find their advertising funny, but seriously? We're going to whine about dialogue in a game where the mechanics center around how many twisted ways you can kick, whip, and otherwise dismember and destroy enemies? A game where shooting someone right up the rear with some kind of gun can cause a firey death fart? Really?

I mean, I just can't wrap my head around it.

It's just more evidence of how frickin backwards our country is I guess. Senseless violence? Fun! Senseless harsh language? Won't someone think of the children?

OH GOD THERE'S A BOOB ON TV SOMEONE DECLARE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY.

This is my way of saying that while you guys are groaning due to overuse of the F-word I'm going to be so busy trying so hard to get that chain linked grenade thing to wrap around a guy so that both grenades hit him in the nuts right as they explode I won't even notice any dialogue.

imbiginjapan wrote:

It can annoy me that kids are consuming drivel without assuming that I think said drivel should be banned.

That has nothing to do with the game itself or its content and everything to do with sh*tty parenting.

Also, let's be real here. The content of the game itself is drivel. Mechanically fun? Possibly, we don't know yet. But it's drivel to its very core. Changing the dialogue doesn't make it any more suitable for kids. It's no different than Duke Nuke'em was.

You brought up the dialogue and then directly linked that to your complaint about kids playing the game, which seems pretty broken to me. Kids shouldn't be playing the game no matter who wrote the dialogue for the reasons I've already mentioned.

But again, sh*tty parenting.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

Geez. I just think the whole thing has the potential to be painfully unfunny. It can annoy me that kids are consuming drivel without assuming that I think said drivel should be banned.

Why do you hate freedom? HOW DARE YOU THINK YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE SOMETHING!!

Cute. Issue isn't with not liking the dialogue. I don't care for it either. It's the complete disregard for the fact that the dialogue is no different than pretty much every other facet of the game design.

It's the comment about kids consuming drivel and relating that to this game, of all games, that struck me as weird.

imbiginjapan wrote:

Geez. I just think the whole thing has the potential to be painfully unfunny. It can annoy me that kids are consuming drivel without assuming that I think said drivel should be banned.

Why do you hate freedom? HOW DARE YOU THINK YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE SOMETHING!!

Thin_J wrote:

Cute.

Thanks.

He thinks the juvenile game might be too juvenile for him to enjoy. Nothing wrong with that. I'm rarely sold purely on mechanics, myself.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

He thinks the juvenile game might be too juvenile for him to enjoy. Nothing wrong with that.

That's fine. But there's some freaky disconnect between wanting to play the game in the first place yourself, and then finding the dialogue and advertising to be more offensive than pretty much anything else they've shown of the game.

"I'm down for whipping people toward me, kicking them in the nuts to launch them into the air, and then shooting them in the ass in mid flip with a grenade launcher, but I don't want to hear them say the f-word too much because that isn't funny."

It just... doesn't make sense somehow.

Thin_J, I am NOT saying I am offended by the dialogue. I just think a lot of the spoken dialogue in the game has the potential to be really cringe inducing and unfunny, and I worry that the advertising is a glimpse into the level of what can be expected. I usually enjoy dumb humor, but there is an art to humor, even scatological humor, that I am afraid is missing in the game. To To clarify why I mentioned kids playing this, and hopefully stop the train before it reaches Cleveland, it's because kids LOVE dick, poop and fart jokes. To a 10 year old, "you scared the dick off of me" is the height of humor. I am not pleased at the idea of giving 4th graders more verbal ammunition, as my wife is a teacher and I constantly have to hear about the stuff her students say.

So there.

imbiginjapan wrote:

To clarify why I mentioned kids playing this, and hopefully stop the train before it reaches Cleveland, it's because kids LOVE dick, poop and fart jokes. To a 10 year old, "you scared the dick off of me" is the height of humor. I am not pleased at the idea of giving 4th graders more verbal ammunition, as my wife is a teacher and I constantly have to hear about the stuff her students say.

Well, again, you don't aim this at game developers or writers or anybody else. You aim this at sh*tty parents.

But yes, if we continue on that one we'll be in Cleveland in no time.

Thin_J wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

To clarify why I mentioned kids playing this, and hopefully stop the train before it reaches Cleveland, it's because kids LOVE dick, poop and fart jokes. To a 10 year old, "you scared the dick off of me" is the height of humor. I am not pleased at the idea of giving 4th graders more verbal ammunition, as my wife is a teacher and I constantly have to hear about the stuff her students say.

Well, again, you don't aim this at game developers or writers or anybody else. You aim this at sh*tty parents.

The only thing the I'm holding the writers responsible for is the quality of the writing.

I am all for aiming the fact kids may be exposed to said bad writing it at the parents. Being pragmatic means knowing that many kids will end up playing this, so I feel that I have the right to be a curmudgeon about that fact. So let's leave it at that... pretty please.

Everyone has the right to be a curmudgeon about whatever they want to be curmudgeony about.

Curmudgeony.

Made up word of the day.

RoughneckGeek wrote:

The quality of the writing is the only reason I'm interested in this game. I still laugh watching the trailer they debuted during E3.

So, if I'm honest with myself I have the feeling my level of enjoyment will directly correlate to my blood alcohol level. Since I watched that video while I was at work, I was completely trashed... I mean completely sober. That didn't help it much.

I think the writing is awesomely horribly awesome.

I'm getting it on the PC!

I can't imagine a People Can Fly game would be very playable for me with a gamepad.

Can someone post a game that has better writing than Bulletstorm?

Half-Life anything.

Seriously though, I don't care about what damage this will do to the youth of Amuricuh, I feel like having the characters rattle off their Duke Nukem wannabe taglines every 30 seconds is going to become the kid kicking the back of my chair at the movie theater. So far, it's the one thing I haven't enjoyed from the previews but it's a doozy.

I don't see the writing as Duke Nukem wannabe. It's so far beyond Duke Nukem in its po-faced silliness and wildly offensive non sequitur profanity that it may qualify as the first game to really effective satirize that style of writing. I personally find it hilarious, but I recognize that my definition of hilarious may diverge somewhat from the typical GWJer.

This is the game that comes with the Gears of War 3 beta, right?

RoughneckGeek wrote:

The quality of the writing is the only reason I'm interested in this game. I still laugh watching the trailer they debuted during E3.

That's kind of what I'm on about. The dialogue is exactly how it should be in this particular game. This game with smart writing just wouldn't make any sense.

Thin_J wrote:
RoughneckGeek wrote:

The quality of the writing is the only reason I'm interested in this game. I still laugh watching the trailer they debuted during E3.

That's kind of what I'm on about. The dialogue is exactly how it should be in this particular game. This game with smart writing just wouldn't make any sense.

I thought about this a bit more. I'm going to leave my comment about kids aside, as that is not my main concern... as I mentioned before I reserve the right to be annoyed that kids will go around saying "butthole-puckering" because it is annoying that parents are too careless to prevent that. I am also not trying to spark a new argument, but I do want to get my feelings straight as I am kind of ambivalent about this game.

So on to my feelings. Yes they are subjective and hard to define outside of examples. There's "smart" stupid and dumb stupid. For me, Smart stupid is South Park, because they seem to constantly come up with new and creative ways to offend. Dumb stupid is Family Guy, mainly because they milk jokes to death until all the funny is sucked away. Some people are perfectly tickled by Family Guy in spite of, or possibly because of, the repetition. I am not.

My hope is that there is enough "smart" stupid for the game to be funny. I don't expect some kind of witty satire or subtle double entendre here - I just want enough variety to keep me on my toes. The trailer seemed better, mainly because there was some actual dialogue, which makes me think there may be more than one endlessly repeated punchline when a dude gets kicked in the nuts. The prior trailers gave me the impression that I would be hearing continuous "zingers" and nothing else. Given the length of the average game and the amount of recorded dialogue one could reasonably expect to hear those "zingers" dozens of times. It might be funny the first couple times, but is it still funny the 49th time? I'm not so sure.

That said I have it on pre-order - the action totally puckers my butthole. I can always cancel if I get cold feet, so I figured there was no harm in doing so.

I am so pissed that I can't get the Epic Edition directly from EA!! I have a 25% off coupon for them, and was hoping to use it.

Is the multiplayer demo out today? Or did I imagine that?

Happy Dave wrote:

Is the multiplayer demo out today? Or did I imagine that?

Yep, downloading now (along with Crysis 2).