BOSTON - Zombies have become a cliched part of video games, with everything from Red Dead Redemption to Call of Duty getting the undead as objects for killing. Warner Bros. Interactive and video game auteur Suda 51 is taking zombies past the extreme and into insanity with Lollipop Chainsaw, a zombie-heavy, violent game that takes the cliche and makes it amazing.
I got a chance to see Lolllipop Chainsaw in action earlier this week in New York and today at the PAX East gaming expo, and I saw an otherwise boring element turned into violent fun. The best way I can describe the game is Suda 51's take on Bayonetta after having a George Romero movie marathon with James Gunn and Jimmy Urine.
That's actually a fairly accurate assessment. Suda 51 is collaborating with James Gunn, director of Slither and Tromeo and Juliet, and Mindless Self Indulgence's Jimmy Urine on the game. Gunn is contributing the writing and Urine is writing the boss music tracks for this undeniably "punk" (in Suda 51's Grasshopper Manufacture flavor) game.
Lollipop Chainsaw is a gory brawler about Juliet Starling, a magic chainsaw-wielding zombie hunting cheerleader (voiced by Tara Strong of Batman: Arkham City and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) trying to save her besieged high school and hometown of San Romero. She's joined by Nick, her beheaded boyfriend, whose cranium she wears on her hip (voiced by Michael Rosenbaum of Smallville and Justice League Unlimited). Together, they dismember thousands of zombies.
I saw a zombie-ridden farm in my demo of the game. Juliet found her sister, a hyperactive teenager who stole a school bus and turned it into a zombie-crushing machine. Juliet had to chase her through the farm, killing zombie farmers and flying zombie scarecrows as she went. The gameplay looked very similar to Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, with emphasis on melee combat thanks to Juliet's chainsaw and occasional projectile attacks via a chainsaw turned shotgun. She cut through the zombie hordes with cheerleader-like moves, high-kicking and spinning as if performing a routine. Because she was holding a magical chainsaw, that routine involved beheading many zombies.
Beheading ties into the game's challenge aspect and replayability. Juliet got a bonus for the more zombies she could killl at once, with decapitations getting extra tokens that could be used in the game's store for upgrades, costumes, and music. Multiple kills also resulted in the screen being filled with glitter and rainbows, which was a nice, if bizarre, touch. The game is firmly tongue-in-cheek, with the drama usually seen in a zombie attack ignored in favor of manic quips, at which Strong and Rosenbaum excel.
Music plays a big aspect to the game, with each zombie boss embodying a different genre of music. The farm's boss was a psychedelic hippie zombie who floated around in a bubble and played a sitar while Juliet hallucinated on giant mushrooms. If you're familiar with Suda 51, the previous sentence should not surprise you. Juliet had to blast her with her chainsaw-shotgun until she split in half, then in fourths, then in eights, until the screen was swarming with floating hippie zombies that cast wheat thresher hallucinations to attack Juliet. Eventually the chainsaw won and the level was over, only to see Juliet's sister disappear and a funk-themed zombie call her on her cell phone and invite her to an amusement park arcade. It's a strange game.
Lollipop Chainsaw doesn't have any unique gameplay mechanics on the surface, but its sense of humor and creative pedigree makes it a game for mature, gore-and-rainbows-loving gamers to keep an eye on. Warner Brothers Interactive releases Lollipop Chainsaw this June.
For more from PAX East, see the slideshow below.
