Dec 27, 2010 11:45 GMT  ·  By

2010 is drawing to a close and a huge amount of great games have already been confirmed for release next year by a lot of companies.

Among them, I'll be looking forward to Bulletstorm, the new first-person shooter developed by Polish studio People Can Fly under the guidance of Epic Games.

I've been a fan of People Can Fly thanks to the brilliantly simple Painkiller shooter series and the PC adaptation of Epic's original Gears of War.

Now, it's thrilling to see a new type of first-person shooter appear in this genre that has been getting a bit boring lately.

In case you still haven't heard about it, Bulletstorm emphasizes skill over kill count, and offers points depending on how you execute your opponents in the game.

Sure, you can just shoot him with a regular weapon, but it's more fun to strap a grenade onto the enemy, use your energy whip to bring him towards you and then kick him into a spiked wall.

That's the kind of mindless fun that the first person shooter genre needs, not just the typical on-rails experiences as seen in current titles.

The story doesn't look that bad either, with comics writer Rick Remender penning a narrative that should serve well to motivate players besides the fun-filled gameplay.

You will play as a space mercenary called Grayson Hunt, who, alongside his team, finds out that they were betrayed and end up marooned on an alien planet, together with lots of enemies.

While it won't exactly win any Oscars, Bulletstorm will certainly win people over through its gameplay, not its story.

Seeing as how it's going to be one of the few new IPs set to be launched next year, Epic is doing everything it can to make sure the game will sell, including bundling beta keys for the multiplayer stage of Gears of War 3.

Bulletstorm is set to appear on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on February 22, 2011.