A question for you my little worker ants. What happens when you take a bunch of horny game programmers and give them the monetary capitol only huge corporations such as Warner Brothers can offer?
No, they don't buy prostitutes, nor do they pay their little sisters to come to the company party. At least not when I am invited. No, what happens is they sit in front of a screen and try and compensate for what they are not getting in the outside world. And that brings us this happy little game I've just endured called Lollipop Chainsaw.
When I first heard of it I thought to myself how novel and yet completely useless a chainsaw made of candy would be. Especially when used against mindless hoards of zombies. And then I got the highly coveted game in my own hands and just from the looking at the cover I realized what the game was all about. Boobs. Young, fresh, perky, bouncy mams on the body of a female so digitally hot real women will never again compare. And everyone likes boobs. Girls compare them and dress them up in all sorts of wonder outfits that show and hide them at the same time. They lift them and squeeze them and ice them down. Guys dream of them and stare at them. Even gay men like to play with them. Breasts have started and ended wars. They are nature's perfect item. And they also have the amazing ability to draw in obscene amounts of money even when they are not real. And this game proves that.
So, you have a game about a girl with large knockers, a lolly and an item that is considered the worst thing to have on you should a zombie outbreak every truly happen. (Splintered bone fragment speeding at your face just doesn't give you that "I'm going to win" felling). And zombie outbreaks have a tendency to just make your day suck. But for our poor heroine Juliet this sucks just a little more. You see today is her birthday and to celebrate she wants to see her hunky boyfriend one last time. And she knows he will be waiting for he because she has a skirt on so short that one wrong move from the camera and you are looking up at her tonsils. There is only one problem...in trying to defend her, Juliet's boyfriend gets bitten by a zombie. And he feels terrible about it. How could he do this to her on her birthday?!?! But not to worry, Juliet is more than just a cheerleader that delights in objectifying herself. She is also a highly trained zombie hunter! And she knows how to take care of her infected boyfriend. (Yeah, and you thought that little itch you got from your girlfriend was bad.) In an act of great love she raises her chainsaw high and brings it down, engine screaming and blue petroleum smoke belching toxic gasses into the air, and relieves his head from the body that was turning on him. A little black magic and the boyfriend is completely cured. From the neck stump up. Yes, her boyfriend is back to normal save for a little issue called a body. But it all works out for the best. And I am not talking about him laying face down in her lap either.
The big issue I had with the game is not having full control of the camera angles. You've played these kinds of games before. You want to turn to the left to wipe out an enemy who is rapidly approaching you, but you are in a hallway and the camera will only let you turn at one quarter the speed it should. Then you step into another area and you can spin circles around your character like a fly on meth. The inconsistency is frustrating and keeps you from getting too immersed in the game play. Other than that it plays rather well, with mighty power attacks you can purchase that offers a wide variety of carnage and humor, such as the handstand ankle grab and flip that puts her loins deep into the face of a dazed zombie. A dazed zombie that you would give all of your lunch money for the year to be. Well, until she kills enough zombies to go into "Sparkle Mode" where her true depth of power releases itself.
Did I just say "Sparkle Mode?" Yes, I did. But fear not, my mindless thralls, this game isn't for pre-teen females learning what masturbation is all about. Eddie the Vampire didn't see zombie butt and decide to take off all his clothing in the sunlight. (Which would kill a real vampire, btw). No, when I say sparkle mode, think of the blond girl in you shop class. The one who didn't belong there. The moment she stepped out of the classroom and joined up with the other bimbos in the hallway is when sparkle mode comes out. It is that glow of confidence and power that comes from having an IQ under 90. And it is great for slaughtering the bejesus out of every shambling mound of human waste that comes at you.
Boyfriend chained to your butt you run from the school to an auto yard that is converted to an 80's looking rock stage. And you don't stop there. you run all around town to take out five demons your enemy, a tall and scrawny emo goth named Swan who hates you because you are popular and wouldn't date him, and in revenge he is destroying the world to reinvent it into a living nightmare. You see, in this odd little world you have three realms. There is Earth where you are now, there is the Land Beyond Words where your zombie hunting master Morikawa goes early in the game when he is killed, (though he does manage to hold on long enough to give Juliet her birthday present), and then there is the Rotten World where Swan is drawing his power from. So now you, as Juliet, and your boyfriend nick who is only good for lip service in his present state, go off to hunt him down and return the world back to normal. If normal for you is very soft core porn.
Nick gets his spotlight through minigames. You see, every now and then you will find a headless blue body, (which after a few hours playing this game matches a part of your anatomy), and you have to play button jumping to get him to walk this body around and take care of obstructions in your way. Which would be really cool if you could do this at an time to any headless zombie. But you can't. So deal with it. Nick also has a few other tricks up his sleeve. For example, Juliet can take him by the hair and spin him in a circle, bashing her decapitated love into anything near her that is rotting and walking at the same time. She can also shake his head from time to time and bronze zombie tokens fly out.
Bronze zombie tokens are what you use to purchase abilities and general items. Every now an then, though, if you beat a boss or have the luck to bead three or more zombies at the same time you will get a silver zombie token. When collected, they can buy you outfits and songs. No, none of the outfits are see through, even though the ESRB on the box said you would see more than your share of flesh. In fact, while it claims nudity, all my many hours of playing in all different difficulty modes gave me nothing of the such. So if you are lonely enough to buy this in the hopes of seeing naked pixels, you would be better off buying Conan or God of War.
Once you take out the demons it is time to face Swan again. Only to find out that in killing the demons, you have completed a ritual for him that called for their death by the hands of someone like you. But not to worry, Swan is an emo. And in true emo fashion, after his long winded speech he pulls out a gun and blows his head off right in front of the girl he had once dreamed about. And it is all over. Bad guy is dead. Well, Swan is dead. And he sucks all his undead friends with him into a pretty little black vortex. Only to rise back up after absorbing them as the all powerful ROCKABILLY!
Have you ever wanted to chop the living shit out of Elvis? I'm not talking about skinny Elvis who's hair looks like it has grown a chin and who's dance moves made girls faint in a pool of their own bliss. No, I mean the fat, smelly freak with the thick sideburns and retarded white jumpsuit Elvis. Well now you get your chance because that is the exact form demon lord Swan becomes. And you better do it quick because he wants to make you into a peanut butter and boobie sandwich. Uh-uh huh!
Overall the game was just...odd. It was fun and had plenty of fun little extras worked into it. Try and look up Juliet's skirt, which is an actual achievement in the game which lets all your female friends know just what a perverted pig you really are, and she slips a hand down to hide what is already basically exposed to you. Which means to get the achievement, you need to work on your peeping perv skills. She won't give it to you easily.
Then there is the dialog. There is just something entertaining about watching two zombies hobble after a guy shouting "Where's the beef?" Everywhere you turn you are getting Austin Powers style humor, most of which is bad but enough to curl a grin at the corners of your lips. Oh, did I mention your family are all zombie hunters as well? You have two hot sisters, one younger and one older, that you meet up with as you run around town. Your dad is the super zombie hunter with a caring and yet slightly demanding and overbearing paternal attitude. And that head of a boyfriend of yours has quite a bit of proving to do to get his approval. But dad is pretty pleased about the whole no body thing. As most fathers would be when their beautiful and slutty daughter brings home a man for you to meet. Your mom is the only odd member. She just stays home and calls Juliet and the others. During the few moments you see her, mom is in the kitchen. No stereotypes there.
If you had the chance to play Onchanbara: Bikini Samurai then you have the general idea of Lollipop Chainsaw. Bouncy chests, wicket weapons and nearly there outfits make the two seem cut from the same cookie cutter. the only real difference is that Onchanbara was made specifically for a male consumer base while Lollipop Chainsaw tricks you into thinking it was made for the male population, but once you step out of the zombie hacking and slip into the other aspects of the game you are slathered by a world that just screams Barbie.
So if you are looking for a game that has boobs and cheesy lines that will make you grunt like a caveman as well as help you connect with the feminine side of you that you keep locked up in the closet, then this is the game for you. Or if you are female and want to play something that makes you look like one of the guys but underneath has all the girly things that make you clap and giggle, this is the game for you too. If you are looking for any serious game play or you are hoping for it to be a resident Evil clone with a better looking lead, look for something else. Considering that over half the people that purchased the game returned it within the first week, this is a game you really want to think about before you buy. Or, better yet, it is one to rent first and buy second. There are plenty of people this game will appeal to, but male and female and not all with metal defects. with a $63.00 price tag, (tax included and rounded down), it is something that if you don't love it you will hate yourself for spending so much on it.
Oh, one last thing about the game. You only have a few map areas to play. This isn't a game you play for a couple weeks to win. Chances are, especially starting on easy mode, you will get through the game in a few hours. But there are several difficulty levels, and you gain rewards for going through each of them. The game is about replay rather than long plot.
Overall I give this game a 6 chained slaves out of 10. fun but only for a while. It will make a great bargain bin pick up. It will make a great conversation piece when you are finally allowed to have girls in your room. But in my opinion, it just doesn't cut the mustard well enough to be worth the high price tag. Then again, people paid $3.99 a minute to talk to girls on the phone, so I suppose the worth of something is only as high as the desperation of those it is being marketed towards. If you don't own a sponge glove, this probably isn't the game for you. And if you do, be careful that your mate hasn't hidden a cheese grater just under the surface of it.
VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "The only thing developers Grindstone & Indigo Studios have successfully argued is how underwhelming spooky dolls tend to be as a horror main course; even so, they didn't have to forego quality craftsmanship all the while. Apropos of its central premise, if you held a physical copy up to a mirror you'd see a "How Not to Design Horror" book in the reflection. From vacuous nonsense tarnishing what's otherwise a rather basic story to dogshit gameplay, nearly every aspect reads like an asset-flipped indie horror game that somehow got a legitimate publisher's attention and additional funding. Perhaps it's quite fitting, then, that Behind the Broken Mirror managed to shatter my subterranean expectations."
Game Rant sits down with the composer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Lorien Testard, who discusses how he made the game's dynamic soundtrack.
Publisher PLAYISM and developer Areazero will release high-speed shooting battle action game Valkyrie of Phantasm for PlayStation 5 and Switch in 2025, the companies announced.
Isn't that the game where you fight hordes of people that spent $60 on games like DNF and Lolipop Chainsaw?
Indeed it is. And then you have the Game Stop zombies that shove pre-orders at you and try and eat your wallet. lol