An Hour of: Lollipop Chainsaw

Let's get something straight here, I did not see any advertisement for this. Well, I suppose I did. The only piece of advertising I saw, was in Gamestation where they had it on the 'Coming Soon' shelf, which essentially showed the cover of the game. And from this cover, we were either going to get a great game, or a complete travesty. And after playing the 'Game of Thrones' game, I wasn't in the mood. Then again it is a zombie game, when has a zombie game ever been bad?

Loading up the game, we get an introduction cutscene before the loading screen. Wow it's been a Hell of a long time since seeing one of these, I think the last time I remember seeing one of these was for the Playstation One, maybe two.

It certainly makes us feel we got what we expected from the game, pink yet horrific, as well as deliver the anime/Japanese feel to it. We're introduced to Juliet (Voiced by Tara Strong), a cheerleader at San Romero High, and she has just turned 18. Well thank God she's of legal age......I'll move on.

She's fueled by lollipops, her mother is a trophy wife, her father is Elvis, her older sister is Subject Zero, and her younger sister works for the Burnout games. We're also introduced to Nick  (Voiced by Michael Rosenbaum) who Juliet is madly in love with. Nick meanwhile is being attacked by legions of the undead. Juliet then panics because she is late,and we get our first upskirt shot.

Going into the prologue, we first get a hint of the over the top nature of this game, when Juliet mows down some zombies with her bicycle. It also tells us in the top right corner some captions, in this case the prologue, "San Romero High School is the BEST!", and the time. This gives a nice comic feel to the game, and it certainly helps the over-the-top action we're about to get. Especially since Juliet carries a giant chainsaw with her, for such an occasion. The funny thing about this, is that the chainsaw just pops out from nowhere, so your idea of this sweet, charming girl, suddenly changes to "What the Hell?".

We then get, quite possibly, the best scene ever in a video game. The picture to the right of this does not do this scene justice. Juliet, revs her chainsaw, sticks it into the concrete, runs at the zombies, with the chainsaw slicing up the road and, in a sea of pink and rainbows, slices and dices five zombies in the best way possible. And all the while, Juliet is calling the zombies douchebags for deciding to start the zombie apocalypse on her birthday. She then lets zombies come toward her, spins on the spot, killing all of them and decapitating on, sending that zombie's head into the air. When that head comes down, she kicks it (Volleying it I might add), causing the head to skip across some bins, the zombie head doing an impression of the Three Stooges along the way, before landing in a baby's pram, where the baby then screams. It was at this point that I knew that I was in for one Hell of a game.

We then see the 3D graphics turn into 2D comic style drawings, where we read some bio on Juliet. We also get some more humor since Juliet's secret kink is "Like's being told she isn't fat". I'm sorry, I haven't said this yet, the graphics are beautiful, they truly are. There are little, if there are any, faults at all in movement for the characters or the surrounding. Sure, there may be some dubbing issues, but they can easily be overlooked. The comic style animations, I don't know, they add a certain touch to it, some artistic nature. Whatever it is, the comic drawings are truly amazing and a nice touch.

Finally controlling the character, we find that the controls are easy to master; B is jump, Y is chainsaw attack, X is pomp-pomp attack, whilst we are told which button to press to interact with objects. I suppose the button bashing controls can get too repetitive and they can be a little jagged, but to be honest, I didn't mind, especially since more variations unlock later. But for the most part I was having too much fun to care. The one thing I did notice though was the camera, which can tend to be awkward at times.

Moving through the school parking lot, avoiding a Hell of a lot of random yet awesome explosions, we come across our first S.O.S. And it's fairly simple; kill six zombies. Upon doing so the guy gives us some zombie medals which we can use in the shop. I'll come back to that later. After the guy gets picked up by a search and rescue helicopter, a bus almost hits Juliet but she does an epic slow motion back flip.


Going into said bus, and we find a giant lollipop, which turns out allows us to recover health, which was good because my health was actually getting quite low at this point. After being stopped by another bus (How the Hell are the zombies getting these buses?), we're finally told what the A button does; it enables us to use a low slash attack, which is about time because those legless zombies were becoming a pain.

A while later and after we saved two more students, and it's here where we get to use this zombie soul meter thing that was building up in the corner. This effectively activates invincible mode where you can kill zombies with one hit, all to the tune of 'Hey Mickey', and it's probably because of the that makes this one of the best parts of the game. The whole soul meter thing is just so surreal.

Speaking of surreal, when I was defending the third guy from zombies, it was also around this point when this 'Sparkle Hunt Bonus' came up, which seams to occur whenever you slice the heads off three zombies at once. This gives a nice little bonus to allow you to buy whatever at the shop, but at the same time it's just completely bizarre. The guy is eventually rescued by the rescue service, but for some bizarre reason they decide to leave the guy hanging there for quite a while, like bait on a fishing line. Sure enough they catch something. This results in Pilot Guy crashing.

We then suddenly see a phone icon, and it turns out Juliet's chainsaw has a built in telephone. Well, she is still a teenager I suppose. This telephone thing virtual does nothing. Okay, some of the phone calls I've had so far from Juliet's dad provided some hints for how to beat the high scores of the game, but the others are just banter to create laughs, but we can't actually seem to answer the phone. We can then try out the shop function for the first time, and we initially here we can purchase new moves or health upgrades. Later we can purchase new outfits or new songs for the soundtrack, from artists of all types such as Dead or Alive, Dragonforce, Arch Enemy, Children of Bodom, and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. This is actually very thoughtful of the game makers to take into account of all the different types of music that different people like.

After that stint of shopping, we can slaughter more zombies and come across a special kind of lollipop, it's just a collectible, kind of like the Flying Rats from 'Grand Theft Auto 4' or the skulls from the 'Halo' series. What collecting these lollipops does beyond collecting them, I do not know. We're also told about the pause menu where we can find reminders on moves we have learnt, or character profiles. We also see 'Juliet's Stash', which basically stores game info like phone calls, types of zombies, lollipops collected, achievements and other stuff. To be honest, 'Juliet's Stash' is better to look at at the main menu, since during the game we can't actually read the zombie profiles or the achievement descriptions.

Moving on we face an onslaught of zombies, and find that these aren't true zombies since they TALK. Yeah, they talk. And yes, in a game where an 18 year old cheerleader carries around a chainsaw, which doubles as a phone, in a world being attacked by zombies, the fact that they talk is the point where I draw the line. After finally reaching the crash site, we come across two normal zombies and George, who is basically stronger than an average zombie. Activating the Soul meter again, I easily defeat all three zombies in one go. And then comes three zombies wearing hazmat suits. Lead by Jerry, these hazmat zombies are much tougher, and the cutscene effectively stopped invincible mode, so it wasn't as easy as George and the other two.

We finally catch up with Nick, whose hobbies include badminton and masturbation, who saves Juliet from a zombie, though he gets bitten in the process. What follows is an emotional scene as the two love birds, where Nick admits that he loves her, and Juliet refuses 'Fin', saying she knows how to save Nick. Nick sees Juliet waving her chainsaw before passing out. He then wakes up in a classroom and finds he's been turned into a handbag.

Having little to no choice but to become part of Juliet's belt, he provides some funny comments and some so-bad-it's-funny comments, as well as ask some very serious questions about the plot. After slaughtering some more zombies, we come across Mr. Fitzgibbon, who has become the teacher from Hell. After killing the waves of zombies he sends after you, he flees. Back in the corridors we come across an S.O.S guy who is being attacked. It took me a few tries to save him as the first couple of times I spent too much time trying to kill the zombies. After eventually saving him and clearing the classrooms, including killing Fitzgibbon with the aid of Soul meter, we see a suicide zombie bomber. Because, you know, this game isn't weird enough already.

Moving onto the next part we come across a headless zombie. What happens next is a mini-game where we place Nick's head on top of the headless zombie and control the body. This mini-game is good I suppose, but there are other mini-games later, some good, some tedious. I'll explain as they come. After another shopping trip we come across the second mini-game, 'Nick Roulette'. Now I completely mis-read this the first time and thought we were going to use Nick's head as a bowling ball, instead she twirls his head round in a circle. Kind of seems pointless when we need to get to another S.O.S all the way down at the other end of the corridor.

But after killing even more zombies, it appears we're about to fight a strong zombie but it gets shot in the head. It appears we've been saved by a policeman, one who can actually shoot...he's a zombie isn't he? Great. Well, after taking care of him and some kamikaze zombies, a zombie drives a bus into the building at Juliet. This leads to a pretty cool time challenge; chainsaw a block of concrete to block its path or get squashed.

Even more zombie deaths later, and we come across some more special zombies, these ones being on fire. But don't worry, there's a mini-game to fight them off! This one involves a strip pole! You continuously press Y to speed up, and to be honest I did find this to be one of the better mini-games. Mainly because it looked awesome spinning round and round like a record baby, killing zombies with a circling chainsaw.

This level pretty much introduces all the mini-games, since we soon come across another mini-game, this one involves jumping up and down on the zombies heads. This mini-game turns out to be awesome, since all those heads then explode into beams of light. Then we come across zombie basketball, where we essentially slice the heads off zombies to get them into the net, though there can be a zombie defender who will try to keep the heads out. You need to score 100 points in three minutes. This one, was probably my favourite out of the mini-games, I just had so much fun out of this..

After escaping a near death explosion, which gave me a craving to do some more shopping for combos, and slaughtered some more zombies in the corridor and a smoke filled room, I used Nick on a headless zombie to do what I do best; blow crap up. Unfortunately two infected police officers who are on fire come in. Luckily I have a filled Soul meter so I quickly made short work of them.

We then meet up with Morikawa, Juliet's sensei. And boy what a character he is. Within two seconds he goes into a weird sequence which...I can't even describe it. You'll need to see it for yourself to see how hilariously awesome that sequence is. Mr Miyagi here then tells Juliet and Nick (He's speaking directly to Nick, as the picture to the right will show you - And yes, fish do turn up from Morikawa's sequence) that there are three worlds, the Land Beyond Worlds, the Rotten World, and Earth. The Land Beyond Worlds is obviously Heaven, so the Rotten World, where everything from ghouls, zombies and goblins live, must be Hell.

Anyway, as Morikawa explains, someone used dark "magic and dynamite" to break down the wall to the Rotten World, letting zombies pour onto the Earth. Whoever blew up the walls between the realms will most likely be trying to find a permanent doorway, so Morikawa states they must stop that from happening. Morikawa then teleports......I love that guy. I hope he turns up again. But for now, my hour is up.

So, my thoughts on the game. It's bloody brilliant! This game is such a big laugh, the over-the-top nonsense, the awesome cutscenes, the easy-to-adapt-to controls, some really funny lines, the brilliant graphics, there is hardly any fault. Well, okay there are some, such as the rubbish camera movements, but to be honest, you really won't care. You have to at least give this game a try, it will not disappoint.