Bulletstorm, Painkiller and Outriders developers People Can Fly are "suspending or parting ways" with over 120 people, shelving one video game project, downsizing another, and "restructuring some of our support teams" in the face of market turmoil.
]]>People Can Fly, the developers of Bulletstorm and Outriders, have cancelled development of a co-op action RPG codenamed Project Dagger. The Polish company informed investors of the decision to cancel the game, which was initially to be published by Take-Two, earlier this month.
]]>It looks like Bulletstorm and Outriders developer People Can Fly are working on a Microsoft IP, but no one knows which one just yet. This comes from People Can Fly themselves via a statement provided to Polish financial site Interia Biznes, where the studio shared that the game currently has the title Project Maverick (via Eurogamer). All of the funding is coming from Microsoft, with a budget ranging from $30-50m.
]]>2011's Bulletstorm feels like such an oasis of violence and childishness in these current times of nu-puritanism. As someone who was there at the era it harked back to, reviewing games in the late '90s, early 2000s, it feels odd to now be almost nostalgic for those days of wanton unpleasantness, when being rude had yet to be classified as a war crime under the Geneva Convention. At the time I was so damned sick of it, rolling my eyes at your Soldier Of Fortunes and feeling exhausted by the immature antics of self-declared "troublemakers" like Take-Two. As gaming was mired in that sort of second wave of misogyny, ultra-violence and sweary derring-don't, we were all desperate for something... nice.
I'm going to make the declaration: games are far too nice now. I'd like some more offensive games please.
]]>It is a shame that, right after releasing the romper-stomper of a shooter that is Bullestorm, Polish studio People Can Fly spent the next six years working with Epic Games on Fortnite and various Gears of Warses. That's all fine but I'd really like to see something new from the studio which created Painkiller and Bulletstorm. Well! Square Enix have announced that they've formed "a new, external development partnership" with People Can Fly to make "a new high-end original title". And that is all we know for now. But it's still good news.
]]>With Bulletstorm: Full Clip coming out today, I thought it might be interesting to take a trip down memory lane to the time Fox News suggested to the world that the game could cause rape. Yeah.
]]>What a peculiar thing is Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition [official site]. It's Bulletstorm from six years ago, that entertaining FPS, but this time with an optional additional mode that is loads worse. That'll be full price, please!
]]>Gearbox are so excited about releasing Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition [official site], the (slightly) prettied-up and expanded re-release of People Can Fly's 2011 fun trickshot FPS, that they've shoved the launch trailer out two weeks early. You big sillies! It's not a great trailer -- nor were the original's, mind, almost putting me off playing it -- but I do welcome the reminder that Full Clip is due on April 7th. That's soon. Where is 2017 going so quickly?
]]>As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we're looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one - in the world of games at least - but, ever the optimists, we're hoping next year will be even better.
]]>Bulletstorm might not have sold enough copies to ever get a sequel, but the new console generation mean that it's getting the HD treatment. Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition [official site] promises hi-res textures, increased polygon counts, smoother framerates and support for 4K resolutions, as well as some new levels and modes.
]]>Polish studio People Can Fly made well-received OTT shooters Painkiller and Bulletstorm, then they got bought by Epic and became Epic Games Poland, and now suddenly they're independent and are People Can Fly again. I'm genuinely distressed that they didn't take the opportunity to name themselves People Can Fly Again. No cast-iron reason has been given for the regained independence and there is, as yet, no sign of conflict, but the official line is that it's "to reflect the team’s desire to create their own games." PCF confirm to us that they retain the rights to Bulletstorm, but sadly there's no talk of a sequel as yet.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
You could just shoot a man to death in Bulletstorm, but it'd reveal a horrible lack of imagination. The game would sneer and dole out a measly 10 murderdollars. Try harder. Slide into a man to launch them up in slow-mo then shoot them to death and you'll get 25. You can do better. Wrap explosives around a man, kick him into the air, then detonate him to murder a pal of his and you'll get, gosh, lots of points - more if the blast also knocks others onto spikes, into man-eating plants, or other horrible environmental traps. It's some of the most fun shooty-shoots I've had in years.
]]>It has been far, far longer than a fortnight since we last heard even the slightest peep about Epic's Fortnite. Many fortnights, in fact - enough to bridge the gap between last year's PAX Prime and this very day. During that span, renowned puppy eater and fearless chainsaw-gun entrepreneur Cliff Bleszinski departed the studio for somehow greener pastures and also another Gears of War game came out or something I guess. The latter, however, was developed by Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly, who now happens to be on - you guessed it - Fornite. Also, they've been rechristened Epic Games Poland, a distinctly less optimistic (yet far more factually accurate) name, if you ask me.
]]>It would be fair to say that - before today - we knew almost nothing about former Bulletstorm lead Adrian Chmielarz and co's "weird horror" departure into the land of indie-dom The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Now, of course we're in the dark on Ethan himself. He's vanished! Like a magician or your phone when you've removed it from your pocket and freak out because you have no idea where you left it and it's in your other hand. The whole point of the game is to figure out what happened to him. But it'd be nice to know, well, how we're going to scare up some clues from the game's cast of "haunting and macabre" characters. That aaaaand mooooore [chains rattling, bats, spooky ghost sounds] below.
]]>Today I come to you with a heavy heart and a higher-than-average tolerance for dick jokes. Bulletstorm - perhaps the manliest manshoot of them all, depending on how you measure these things - is officially dead. Apparently, People Can Fly's cartoonishly profane murder symphony didn't fly with Epic brass, so now Grayson Hunt is getting mad skillshots on angels. Somewhere, a giant remote-controlled dinosaur is shedding a single tear. Made of lasers. So then, what happened? Well, in what's almost assuredly a first for a game company - nay, the whole of humankind - Epic's Mike Capps partly blamed PC piracy.
]]>This kind of thing just scares the hell out of me. While Bulletstorm isn't exactly the kind of game I'm going to put on a pedestal and hail as the one true future of electronic entertainment, it was a new franchise, a rare shooter that didn't take itself deathly seriously, a good-looker and a game that at least attempted a few bonus ideas. It did a lot of things right, and it was clearly having a great time in the process. Yet it didn't turn a profit for devs People Can Fly and Epic.
]]>Did you like Bulletstorm? Did you enjoy the multiplayer modes? So did I! I can't imagine anybody's still playing them, but that's for Epic and not me to decide. They've just released the Gun Sonata DLC pack, offering three new maps for Anarchy, the game's arena co-op point-scoring mode, and two new maps for Echo, the game's corridor-shooter point-scoring mode. For this they are charging ten American dollars, which is a number that is a little more than nine dollars, but significantly less than twelve dollars.
I think I need another mug of tea. Press release after the jump.
]]>I am as outraged as a man who hasn't yet felt the effects of his morning tea can be. Which is to say I look the same but I'm typing marginally harder.
I spotted over at PC Gamer that Epic have released the Bulletstorm soundtrack for free. Kind of them, no? You can download it here. Except I've just discovered the hard way (clicking through every track in sequence) that it features everything except the Disco Inferno cover that plays when you get to the club, which is to say they left out the one track everyone remembers. Epic have dropped the ball right onto our collective face. If you haven't played Bulletstorm, you can watch the part I'm talking about below.
]]>Better late than never? Bulletstorm has finally released its PC demo, which is perhaps a tad late to make up for the bad blood over its previous cancellation, but presumably still within plenty of time to convince the doubters to take a look. Quintin loved it when he reviewed it, and Kieron, Quintin and I had a good old chat about it here. You can download the demo RIGHT NOW from Steam or apparently on GFWL, but I got fed up of their ghastly website when trying to find it.
]]>With John literally ten minutes from the end of the game, Kieron having completed it, and Quintin having reviewed it, it was decided that a gathering of the Verdict for Bulletstorm should be called. The mighty trumpet sounded, and we gathered around the Rock, Paper, Shotgun Reflecting Pool, whereupon we sang our tales of dick-fuelled murdering. Read on.
]]>Okay, so I was wrong. I admit it. Everything Dr Carole Lieberman said was absolutely true. The proof is below.
]]>I'm very pleased to say we've heard back from the last of the experts we contacted after the Fox News Debacle. We've now spoken to Jerry Weichman, Ph.D who was quoted by John Brandon as warning that games such as Bulletstorm could do serious damage to children, as an example of an expert who was "worried that video game violence may be reaching a fever pitch." And while Weichman explains that he was not misquoted, he certainly has far more moderate views on videogames than someone reading the article may have believed. When calculating the rather odd maths that led to Brandon's "nearly universally" angry experts, we counted Weichman amongst the two who were actually against the game. This was incorrect, as our interview with the clinical psychologist reveals, in which he explains, "there is nothing wrong with the game being produced and sold to the users it is intended for." And we also learn that Dr Weichman is rather partial to a game of Call Of Duty.
]]>Bulletstorm isn’t actually out until this Friday, but EA recently demanded we send one of our number along to play, complete, and review the finished game. I returned to RPS having finished the single-player game and invested some six hours into the multiplayer, making me perfectly equipped to tell you Wot I Think.
]]>There's always a twist. If you followed the Fox News Debacle, you'll have seen the tale that began with an article on Rupert Murdoch's esteemed news source that asked whether Bulletstorm was "the worst video game in the world", and argued that playing it could cause people to rape. We took a closer look at the claims made, found that at least one of those interviewed had been deliberately misrepresented and another ignored, and demonstrated that the author of the article did not complete even basic fact checking before publishing (for instance, being willing to let readers believe that reported rapes are on the increase). Then the "expert" who triggered it all, Dr. Carole Lieberman, got in touch to finally provide her evidence for the "thousands" of articles that proved sexual violence in games causes sexual violence in real life. Nothing she sent had anything to do with the subject, and it became clear that she had either not read the papers she was linking to, or wasn't able to understand them.
Now the original author of the Fox News article, John Brandon, has filed a new Bulletstorm story on FoxNews.com, in which he once again makes extraordinarily inaccurate statements that he cannot evidence, and decides to insinuate that Rock, Paper, Shotgun has not told you the truth. Oddly enough, we have.
]]>Remember this spurt of controversy back in January when we heard that the Bulletstorm demo would be gracing the Xbox Box and Sony Playingstation only? Turns out the PC will be getting a demo after all. Epic vice president Mark Rein has tweeted that the PC demo is in the works, and should be available "shortly after" the game's release this Friday. Strong!
]]>I think this shall likely be the last mention of the Fox News/Bulletstorm debacle. But it's a pretty special one. If you followed the story you'll know that the inestimable journalists at Fox News saw fit to run a story in which they carried claims that playing Bulletstorm would cause people to rape. Through investigating the story further we discovered that some had been misrepresented, others were completely ignored presumably because they contradicted with the desired angle, and a few people were given space to voice unevidenced and extraordinary claims. The main voice of this collection, Dr Carole Lieberman, has released a statement in which she states that she too was misrepresented by Fox News, and then goes on to restate exactly the same spurious claims. And as of yesterday got in touch with those who had emailed her for comment, this time linking to her evidence. Here we go then.
]]>Following the recent wash of ingenious marketing and controversy it’s a little tricky to remember that Bulletstorm is simply an FPS from the Painkiller developers, coming out in less than 2 weeks. Will it be any good? At EA’s invitation I sat down for a lengthy hands-on. That’s the perfect set-up for a dick joke, by the way. My restraint knows no bounds.
]]>Yesterday Fox News asked the headline question, "Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?" Which is spectacular. It's a quite remarkable piece of writing, worthy of our own Daily Mail. And why is it the WORST GAME IN THE WORRRRLD? Because they've named some of the Skill Shots with sexual innuendos. Which, they absolutely astonishingly claim, causes rape.
]]>The Bulletstorm tweeting-thing announced that People Can Fly's free Call Of Duty parody, Duty Calls, has been download 1.25 million times over the weekend. The brief game, which mocks the "realistic" shooter genre, was an advert for Bulletstorm's more science fictional approach on the macho manshoot. And, well, it was actually pretty funny. As adverts go, it was one of the more inventive ones we've seen. A kind of anti-demo. "Bulletstorm is not this," being the message. It also, perhaps, goes some small way toward making up for the lack of an actual demo. Well, they say laughter is the best medicine. We'll see about that.
]]>UPDATE: full walkthrough video below. War never changes. War has changed.
I'm still downloading this, but I'll point you at it while we all work out what it is. The origin: a tweet from EA reading "Stay Frosty @Bulletstorm fans. Download a FREE version of the most epically epic FPS ever: Duty Calls." The destination: TheDutyCalls.com, a 765Mb download, a whole lot of cheeky references to Call Of Duty, and the below video.
BUT WHAT IS IT? I'll tell you if this bloody download ever finishes. 765Mb? This is surely more than a cheap pun...
]]>EDIT: Stand down! People Can Fly's Creative Director, Adrian Chmielarz, has tweeted saying that Bulletstorm only requires a constant internet connection for installation and online play. This simply looks like an incredibly poor choice of words on EA's part, since none of the other "digital" versions on the disclosure page list a persistent internet connection as a requirement. Phew. For posterity, I've re-posted my original post after the jump.
]]>Bulletstorm isn't getting a PC demo and we are ANGRY, yes, but then they release a trailer with a line like "pucker your butthole!" and all is forgiven. Now Epic have started releasing short videos detailing the various skillshots integral to the game, and they're calling these skill-related episodes... skillisodes, a word that I can barely type without going and washing my hands. But then you actually watch them, and they're awesome. Full game's less than a month away now!
]]>Of the spate of recent Bulletstorm trailers, while they've been incredibly funny, they've not shown a huge amount of the game itself. This latest, detailing the revenge moves a little more comprehensibly, as well as showing some of the characters' natterings, lasts a decent length. Be warned, faint-eared readers! It contains some swears that your boss may disapprove of. Oh, and bodies being violently dismembered, but everyone's cool with that.
]]>Aw, that Cliffy B is such a sweetheart. With the news that Bulletstorm demos will be available for the 360 and PS3, but not the PC, clearly a few people with a big grey box are a little miffed. Is this in case of demo piracy? Er um. So the gaming's Man Of Tact, as Blues report, has attempted to quell the storm with a thoughtful and thought-provoking tweet on the matter:
"https://bit.ly/eTr0BR - BULLETSTORM DEMO COMING TO 360/PS3 JANUARY 25th. In other news, PC gamers are grumpy about this."
Meanwhile, even though they don't deserve it, there's a couple of new videos below.
]]>I spent some time trying to figure out how to crowbar in my own reference to that bit in The Simpsons where Skinner declares there to be a "diorama-rama", but it just didn't work. Anyway, this is the Bulletstorm trailer where they get clever, because it's a diorama scene that reference's Halo's one, and that is like a satire or something. Ah, "pastiche". Yeah, that's the stuff. Go watch it, and think about how well Epic know their audience. Pretty well, I reckon.
]]>There was a time when a new game from Epic meant saving up the thousand or so pounds it would cost to get a machine that could play it. That sounds so alien now, so ludicrous, that people were upgrading at such vast expenses just to play the latest, greatest PC game. But of course it was an investment in the many dozens of games that would follow, until the next time id released something. But now, thanks to cross-platform publishing, the PC is idling. We're already so far ahead of the current gen console tech that we can spin our wheels and enjoy our latest games on two-year-old rigs, with the graphics card we bought at the time. Madness. And to prove this point, the Bulletstorm specs look positively pedestrian. They're below.
]]>There's a new Bulletstorm trailer, in which, Cliffy 'Don't Call Me CliffyB' B describes his hopes, dreams and aspirations.
Good grief.
(Probably NSFW)
]]>I've just realised that Bulletstorm's above killer robot wheel might in fact have merely detached from an even bigger killer robot truck. Wouldn't that be amazing? People Can Fly, feel free to drop me a job offer. I expect at least £5,000 per year plus unlimited access to the coffee machine. Also, I want the job title of Ludographer. You see, Ludo is ancient Greek for "play", and "grapher" is ancient Greek for somebody who works with 3D graphics engines. Look, I'm even posting your funny little Happy Holidays video. I quite like it. It reminds me of Serious Sam.
]]>South of our clicky bit is a video in which Epic Games lead singer Clifford Bleszinski claims that Bulletstorm's manshooting isn't simply shooting men, but a lot of other creative stuff, much of which appears to involve smacking people around using "physics" and killing them with "explosions" and stuff. You're apparently going to want to toy with them, to farm them for points. This says something about the world we live in, but I dare not hazard an interpretation. Go see him say stuff and then, ultimately, go do something else.
]]>Finally watched the latest footage from Bulletstorm, which - like last time - is producer Tanya Jessen having a good old yabber over the last demo. In this case, from the Tokyo game-show. This time, we're weapon centric, talking about how they've concentrated on making sure the gun that fires enormous cannonballs is the sort of enormous, cannonball-firing gun they want. Go footage!
]]>It's been at least two months since we posted some Bulletstorm footage, and considering it's the most absurd shooter currently in development that's about a month and three weeks too long. Forgive us. Look! Here's some hot & spicy footage of Bulletstorm fresh out of GamesCom, featuring a couple of new monster reveals and voiceover from Epic Games Producer Tanya Jessen in which she tells the story of the game's four-barreled shotgun. The cutting edge of videogame news, right here.
]]>The EA GamesCom 2010 press conference has been wrapped up - and there was no Battlefield 3 showing - but there is some interesting material in there. I've quickly jotted the relevant stuff below.
]]>More bigwig fruits from my time at GameHorizon now, chums. I managed to snag an hour with Epic's outspoken vice-president Mark Rein, who bought me a cheese sandwich, showed me prototypes of the Unreal engine running on iPhone, iPad and Android (platforms which he considers "the future"), and let me spam him with questions for GamesIndustry.biz.
Come the end of the interview, I swapped out my GI hat for my RPS hat (eight feet high, made of diamonds and love) and harangued him a little about Epic's stance on the PC these days - they suffered a whole lot of shelling from the angrytank following some disparaging comments about the platform, and the revelation that Gears of War 2 wouldn't come to our beloved boxes. For Rein at least, the idea the Epic are now anti-PC is a misconception...
]]>Me and Quintin met Cliff Bleszinski a few years ago. He was the only man in the room wearing leather trousers. This means something, I'm just not sure what. In other news: GT have grabbed a walkthrough of Bulletstorm with Mr B talking People Can Fly's absurdo-shooter through (below). It contains a bunch more footage, with a rechargeable cyberbuddy, and some really lovely vistas. So that's nice.
I was also amused to see this Bulletstorm news story over on VG247. That's thinking outside the box, graphics fans. Clever stuff.
]]>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.
]]>Looks like Destructoid got the scoop on the Bulletstorm video, and thanks the magic of sharing we're able to post it for you lot below. People Can Fly's next game, which was announced only recently, is a manic-looking FPS with lots of floating people kicked in the face. Dudes get kicked, people get shot. It's the magic formula. The co-op shooter is still a way off, being scheduled for Q4 2011. Looks actiony, anyway. Go take a look.
]]>People Can Fly (they of Painkiller) are going to be producing a new Unreal 3-powered shooter called Bulletstorm. It's the subtle tale of two futuristic mercenaries stranded on a world of flesh-eating mutants. You can expect some fancy shootin':
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