Cliff Bleszinski Defends Bulletstorm Violence

Bulletstorm has generated interest among gamers for the way it breaks the conventions of the first-person shooter genre, but some have also expressed concerned about the fact that the title might lend new arguments to those who believe that games are too over the top in their portrayal of violence.

But one of the designers best-known for the way they portray violence does not agree with that assessment.

Cliff Bleszinki, who is the main public face of Epic Games, has told CVG that, “You know the violence in games, the language and all those issues are issues… on one hand I’ve always found very scary, that people are attacking the industry.”

He added, “But on the other hand, I have found it somewhat flattering because it’s one of those situations where the fact that people think ‘ooh, big scary video games are ruining the world’, I guess, means that we’re the new rock and roll, the new Elvis, the new Dungeons and Dragons, the new moving pictures.”

He again called Bulletstorm “tongue in cheek” and emphasized that all the people working on the game were aware of the direction the game was going in and were not trying to just add more violence to stoke the controversy.

Bulletstorm is a first-person shooter that is built around the idea of skill kills, providing gamers with a wide range of tools and weapons that they can then use to kill enemies in innovative ways.

The kill moves are named and in straight arcade fashion points pop up informing the player of how well he is doing.

The controversy over the game's violence might pick up after it is released.

Bulletstorm is being developed by People Can Fly and will be launched on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 on February 22.