From the showing of the very first trailer that was released for Lollipop Chainsaw I just new this game would be a treat to play. I got to finally got a chance to play a little bit of the game and I can confirm that the game plays just as crazy as it looks. It also helped that I got to play the game inside of a school bus that looked like it was pimped out in Hell.
I played as the main character, Juliet Starling, who is a cheerleader at her high school San Romero High (a nod to the director of the ‘Living Dead’ series, George Romero). A zombie outbreak has taken over her school so she must use her cheer-leading skills in conjunction with her chainsaw and take out the zombie hordes. The stage I played took place in the hallways of her high school, I confronted plenty of undead who were either trying to eat me or the other survivors that were still around. The gameplay was similar to that of ‘Devil May Cry’ or ‘Bayonetta’, using outrageous acrobatics in combination with weapons to take out zombies. Pulling off special combos, gave me lots of rainbows and hearts that burst from the enemies as they expired. The gore in the game is very cartoony but some of the language does run a bit blue, but it’s amusing. There are breaks in the usual fighting mechanics when you take your boyfriend’s decapitated head (which Juliet removed after he was bitten by zombies to keep him alive with some kind of dark cheer-leading magic) and place it on certain headless bodies that glowed blue. When his head is placed on the headless bodies, he is able to remove obstacles blocking Juliet’s path. I’m not sure if he could be used to fight enemies as well, but I know that he can only use the body for a limited amount of time. Besides sawing zombies into pieces with her chainsaw, Juliet can also turn the chainsaw into a giant gun and blast away at baddies. I didn’t get to play very long and I also didn’t get to appreciate the soundtrack, which is done by Akira Yamaoka, since there were no headphones provided but the game was still pretty fun.
I took some shots outside and inside of the school bus where I demoed the game on the show floor and we also got some screenshots and gameplay footage in our gallery below. Look for Lollipop Chainsaw to hit stores June 12th in North America.
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