Epic Games and Painkiller dev People Can Fly have finally taken the wraps off of Bulletstorm, their FPS collaboration for EA, and it's looking like a brutal yet beautiful love note to fans of over-the-top action. Epic's design director Cliff "I created Gears of War" Bleszinski and Bulletstorm producer Tanya "I produced Gears PC" Jessen flew in to San Francisco last week to debut the game. The duo kicked things off with the above trailer before getting into the nitty-gritty details in a live gameplay demo, with Bleszinski steeling the crowd for what he considers to be "a mix of Burnout, Duke Nukem and Firefly / Serenity."

Bleszinski prefaced the demo by saying that, while still very much into the Gears series, "what really gets me out of bed in the morning is crafting a whole new world," something that he's excited to get to do on this project with the team at People Can Fly in Poland. He says he plays the game three to four times a week to offer his feedback, and that Epic's art and production teams in Raleigh, NC work daily with PCF. He said that Epic also sends techs to the developer on a frequent basis to ensure that it is up to speed on Unreal Engine updates.

Whatever they're all doing, it looks amazing -- both from a visual and gameplay standpoint. Blezsinski said that, unlike most modern FPS titles, Bulletstorm "doesn't take itself too seriously," adding that it has the intense action, the headshots and the like, but "does it with a wink and a smile." But what does it do differently? Skillshots. "It's like a cat playing with a mouse before killing it," Blezsinski said of the game's (very cool) core play mechanic, claiming that it takes the scoring system introduced in Unreal Tournament -- killing sprees, double-kills, etc. -- to "the next level."