BulletStorm reviews

With today's release of the controversial first-person shooter "Bulletstorm" the web is aflutter with searches for reviews, most of which seem positive.

Attack of the Fanboy gives the game an overall score of "Loved," calling it a game "people will look back on as an example when trying to innovate in the genre going forward."

gamrConnect gives it a 9.2 out of 10, dubbing it "one of the most fun, intense, crazy and over-the-top games I have played in years."

The reviewer at Destructoid had mixed feelings about the game, writing "I like the game and will at least recommend it as a rental, based on what I played. But I worry that players will quickly move on to the next shiny thing that catches their attention."

Reviewer Ryan Kuo, in the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy entertainment blog, has a review of the game listed under a headline calling the game "too reasonable," and he concludes it's "a game for gamers — those with a solid background in the history of the shooter genre, or at least a certain fixation on tracking and hitting very small, erratically moving targets." For the rest, Kuo writes, the game "might seem a weird mix of balls-out action and fussy, almost scientific tinkering."

Reviews aside, the game hasn't been without controversy leading up to its release. Earlier this month Fox News famously asked "Is 'Bulletstorm' the worst video game in the world?" citing the game's gruesome graphics and "excessive" profanity, as well as the in-game awards system which "ties the ugly, graphic violence into explicit sex acts."

(The game is rated M — mature content suitable for persons ages 17 and older — by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.)

Fox even went so far as to quote Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist and book author, as saying sexual situations and acts in video games — highlighted so well in "Bulletstorm," according to Fox — can lead to real-world sexual violence.

"The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games," Lieberman said.

Love it or hate it, the game is available for purchase for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms today. Will you buy it, rent it or skip it altogether?