There weren’t many surprises for E3, but the last day there was one big one. While checking out Sega’s upcoming lineup I spotted a room that was showing off PlatinumGames’ Mad World, and jumped right in line for the next demo. You might have missed mention of the game (last wrote about it here) but it looks phenomenal, a fun, mature Wii game. Who’d know that once in the room I’d actually fall for another title?
They had two developers from PlatinumGames there showing off their titles, and the first one was Bayonetta. Oh, Bayonetta. My new love.
The game looks absolutely fucking ridiculous, and I write that with complete admiration. It’s a game from the mind of Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, and it shows- it has the same guns n’ swords action, except it actually looks fun here. It’s incredibly stylized, cool and campy, all at once.
Instead of playing as an emo guy with a cloak and gender issues you play as a large-haired and large-breasted witch who wields two pistols with her hands and another two strapped to her ankles. It makes for some insane animations as she doesn’t hesitate to shoot with all 4 weapons, moving like a stripper and killing everything around her. Forget Cherry Darling, this girl’s got some moves.
Just walking around with her is great- she sways her very shapely ass as her hair sways back and forth, strutting more like a model than a demon-killer. But while she’s a vicious fighter with guns, one of her best weapons is her hair. Yep, you didn’t read that wrong, her hair. She can teleport it in and out of another dimension and turn it into some gigantic hair-thing that jumps out of a portal. It looks almost like Battletoads when a gigantic fist made of hair smashes your enemy into the wall, or a huge high-heeled shoe kicks them to pieces.
Besides the weapons you start with you can pick up your enemy’s weapons such as swords that’ll cut them in half, or even bizarre and hysterical ones like trumpets that shoot out shotgun-like blasts of musical notes. If chopping your enemies in half or shooting them to bits isn’t gory enough for you, you can even warp in torture devices to place your enemies in. There’s nothing more insane than seeing your witch pull an iron maiden or guillotine out of nowhere and throw her struggling enemy into them. The blood spills everywhere in this game, and it definitely takes advantage of the 360 and PS3’s capabilities… easily looking better than Devil May Cry 4.
Throughout most of the game you’re trying to collect halos from your enemies, most of whom have a strangely angelic feel to them. Some of them have halos themselves, such as those winged demons that she was fighting in the trailer. At the end of the demo was a big boss creature that had the face of a cherubic statue and the body of a deformed beast. They showed how your hair will be used for a finishing move on the bosses, in this case transforming into a massive hair dragon that bit the shit out of the beast, with blood spurting everywhere and dripping down its hairy jaws.
Gory, fast, and flashy, this one shot immediately to the top of my most-anticipated list. It hits “sometime in 2009” for the Xbox 360 and PS3. I can’t wait till there’s some more footage online to show you guys, but keep Bayonetta in your mind. You just have to see it in action.
After that, MadWorld looked almost tame in comparison.
The game still is quite unique, employing an almost Sin City graphic novel style to the graphics. It’s a nice way of sidestepping the Wii’s graphical (in)capabilities and make a game that stands out among the rest. It’s all black and white, except for the red, red blood. And there is a ton of blood. The story in the game is that the main character has entered a Running Man game of sorts, where his whole goal is to kill his enemies in as violent a way as possible. Got to keep those ratings up, right? Doesn’t hurt that your guy has a chainsaw attachment for his hand that he can equip at any time. You can also take those bad guys out using items found around the world (like sticking a street sign through someone’s neck) or use environmental hazards for kills- like a conveniently spiked wall that you can smash your enemies into. Over and over again. They also showed someone getting thrown into a trash bin, which closed down on the poor fella and bisected him. There’s also large boss battles for this one as well, but we weren’t shown a lot of it before it was switched off.
The controls look fun, as you can use the Wii remote and nunchuck to literally rip opponents in half, as well as other motion-sensitive moves. All the while this completely over the top violence is occuring, two commentators talk about the action as if it’s a sports game. The commentators brought some real laughs out of the group of journalists in attendance, never an easy thing- but it was obvious who the men providing the two voices were. Famous people, let’s say.
Sega is incredibly lucky to have picked up PlatinumGames’ work. They have some really innovative and mature games on the way and it’s exactly the kind of originality that you’d expect out of a team comprised of ex-Clover Studios (Okami) members. Definitely highlights of E3- I just wish I could’ve gotten my hands on them!