Lollipop Chainsaw: PS3 Game Review

Lollipop Chainsaw: PS3 Game Review

Released by WB Games
Platform: PS3

Cheerleaders and zombies.

And a great big chainsaw wielded by a pneumatic blonde wearing a full on cheerleader outfit and sucking on lollipops.

The game just sells itself, right?

Well, yes it does but you shouldn't just dismiss this as a novelty game because it's a hell of a lot of fun.

You play Juliet Starling, an All American cheerleader at San Romero High School, who wakes up on her 18th birthday to find that a plague of the undead has overtaken her town.

Normally, that'd be cause for anyone to declare it the worst birthday ever - but not Juliet. You see, Juliet has a secret - she's a chainsaw wielding zombie slayer who can backflip, kick ass and shake her pompoms as she brutally slays the hordes of the walking dead.'

Which is fortunate because that's what you do as you play on as Juliet through six levels of hack and slash action.

What's not so fortunate is that Juliet's high school boyfriend Nick, got bit by these bad boys and girls as he was waiting to give Juliet her birthday gift. So, Juliet had no choice but to hack off his head before the infection spread and carry him around on her belt.

Juliet's also able to upgrade her chainsaw as the game goes on - most of that is done automatically via completion of certain points. But the more zombies you hack up in decent combinations, the more you get to fill up Juliet's star meter and coin collection (each death nets cash to be traded in for health upgrades, strength upgrades and chainsaw combos). The key to this game though is to perfect the combos, increase the head count (literally) and net more points that way by using a bit of a strategy to off them rather than just hack into them.

Throw in online leaderboards, minigames where you behead zombies to score baskets in a basketball game, the chance to put Nick's head on a zombie and have him perform acts as well as various other mad ideas, and you can see why this game doesn't lose any of its ludicrous charm.

Yep, Lollipop Chainsaw is that kind of slightly lunatic, out there batshit crazy, occasionally vulgar game - but it's extremely playable, brutally enjoyable and perfectly comic book with a smattering of total tongue in cheek humour throughout. Developer Suda51's created a game which is throwaway fun and is just the kind of game that you want to keep playing on despite the increasing ridiculousness. There's some great music thrown in too - from the cheesy hit Mickey to some pretty rad punk rock themes, this is a game which thematically hits all the right notes and then some.

One minor niggle is the somewhat excessive number of times the action is interrupted at the end of a sequence to load up another section of the game. It's a real shame because it tends to jar the action somewhat and grind it to a halt. I understand it's a necessity but after a while, it does become more of a distraction and minor frustration than anything else.

Graphically, it's nothing sensational on the backgrounds front and occasionally you're not allowed to stray around the screen and go where you want, but Lollipop Chainsaw is blessed with such bright colours and such energy, wit (which is occasionally near the knuckle) and some fun cut scenes - you can see why Lollipop Chainsaw is such a damn good and brutally enjoyable brief bit of fun style proposition.

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