Snowquester Special: Lollipop Chainsaw

Yesterday, the DC area had some winter weather which, although anti-climactic, resulted in widespead closings....Snowquester Day!  And a work-free day can only mean one thing: lots of quality time with the PS3.  It afforded me the time I needed to wrap up Lollipop Chainsaw, so now I can give you my take on it.

If you haven't seen the game before--or the cheerleader-chainsaw cosplay at any of the Cons this past year--the basic premise of Lollipop Chainsaw is that you play a zombie-hunting high school cheerleader whose weapon of choice is a girl-ified chainsaw.  In the prologue, we meet our hero Juliet Starling on her birthday, when she discovers her boyfriend Nick has been attacked by zombies.  To save him from becoming a zombie, she decapitates him and uses crazy magic skills to preserve his head....she then carries his talking head around as a belt accessory for the rest of the game.  Slightly morbid?  Maybe.  Hilarious? ABSOLUTELY!

The game consists of multiple themed stages, each one culminating with a boss battle.  The gameplay is varied enough between battling zombies, mini-games (some involving the use of Nick's head on zombie bodies to accomplish different tasks), and quick-time challenges, so it does a pretty good job of avoiding tedious and repetitive button-mashing.  I thought the variation in the zombies' behavior afforded enough of an opportunity to use the different advanced chainsaw-cheerleading moves, and the boss battles were each unique and memorable (think fat Elvises, disco dancers, and psychadelic hippie-zombies). I also enjoyed the clever dialogue--some of the exchanges between Nick and Juliet are hilarious, same with Juliet's dad.  Don't get me wrong, it was definitely cheesy at some points, but I got the sense that this was the intention of the creators at Grasshopper Manufacture.

As for the interface, it was a bit jerky at times with respect to the camera angles and enemy targeting. That being said, the fun graphics and the joy of hacking and slashing zombie hoardes made up for those shortcomings.  Before I bought this game, I noted there were a lot of reviews citing gratuitous violence and sexual inuendos in the game.  Really?  I don't think the zombie gore in Lollipop Chainsaw is any worse than that portrayed in shows like The Walking Dead.  As for the sexual content, even as a girl I didn't find it to be overbearing or uncomfortable compared to some other video games out there.  I mean, yes, she's a well-endowed cheerleader in a skimpy outfit who loves lollipops, but it's pretty clear from the beginning of the game that it's intended to be a campy take on some other games out there that have taken a more serious approach to scantily-clad female heroines.  As a comparison, I found the constant boob-jiggling of Ivy in Soul Calibur to be way more distracting and annoying than any of the content in Lollipop Chainsaw.  To me, it's about how it's presented in the context of the game.

Overall, the game is super silly and fun to play.  There's plenty of goodies to unlock which would require repeat play of some of the stages, but is that enough to keep me playing?  Probably not.  I admit that the girly side of me really wants to unlock the rest of Juliet's outfits and some more MP3s, but I doubt that will be enough for me to come back to the game.  Despite the shortcomings with some of the interface and fighting glitches, I would recommend Lollipop Chainsaw as an amusing diversion for a week or two.