Bulletstorm Riffs On FPS Category With 'Duty Calls' Parody Promo

Epic Games and People Can Fly's Bulletstorm has been marketed as a game whose excess and irreverence are intended to serve as antidotes to the often serious tone and focus on realism for which traditional first-person shooters tend to aim. Now, the companies are driving this messaging home with a new downloadable game that intentionally parodies Activision's Call of Duty. The free PC download -- it's called Duty Calls: The Calm Before The Storm -- pokes plenty of fun at the Call of Duty brand [YouTube walkthrough], from its logo and visual palette to its dialogue and objectives, which often elect being true to conventions of the military game genre over being especially surprising or inventive. "Here's your objective," a gruff, soldierly voice barks in the online trailer. "Blah blah blah blah secret base; blah blah nuclear missile bomb." Epic's Cliff Bleszinski joined the fun, deadpanning on Twitter: "Wow. I'm blown away. This game will redefine military shooters for years to come," he quipped. Although Bulletstorm doesn't release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC until February 22, fans have already been buzzing about the game's nearly-comic level of extreme violence and the characters' hyperbolic, aggressive cursing. By comparing Bulletstorm to the FPS genre's much more sober crown-holder, the company seems to want to enforce the point that Bulletstorm's buffet of blood and genitalia jokes isn't meant to be taken especially seriously. Of course, the parody -- intentionally or not -- subtly draws on the visible, ugly legal fight that BulletStorm distributor Electronic Arts has had with Activision over the co-founders of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare house Infinity Ward. Self-protectively, Duty Calls' official page features the clear footnote: "Duty Calls is a parody. It is not associated with Activision or the Call of Duty games."