However, once all the glorious “Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi” eye candy is scraped away, players often are bogged down in repetitive action that’s stalled in a routine, linear design and game mechanics that are peppered with only some mildly inspired boss battles. The soundtrack also is tempting with classic favorites such as the Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb,” Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” The Chordettes’ “Lollipop,” Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” and Human League’s “Empire State Human.” The graphic design layers of Lollipop Chainsaw are impressive throughout with menu screens looking as though they were ripped from a 1960s EC Horror comic book (remember Tales from the Crypt?), plenty of colorful cut scenes and action that blends pulp art and three-dimensional, cel-shaded characters.ĭevelopers try to beef up the content by offering tons of unlockables, such as vicious combination moves, alternate (and even skimpier) costumes for Juliet, lots of hard-core music (punk to metal) and concept art packages. She starts running and hits colorful ramps to jump while rolling over oil cans (to keep the saw primed), collecting medals and flattening zombies.

* Maybe this one stretches the ridiculous (although I think once we get beyond Nick’s talking, bodiless head, it’s all reasonable), but Juliet uses a Chainsaw Dash much like Sonic the Hedgehog races through courses.

* I did enjoy the pretty clever Pac Man homage that finds Juliet in a maze being chased by those munching orbs.

* At one point, Juliet jumps aboard a wheat-thrashing combine and must mow down a set amount of undead simply by meandering about in a field.

* Our beauty occasionally uses a stripper pole to spin around and quickly dispatch large numbers of her rotting enemies.* Basketball is now a much gorier sport as Juliet cuts heads off of attacking players and bounce them into the basket.Juliet uses her Chainsaw Blaster (a potent shotgun) to fire at ghouls armed with bats and balls that pop up from the ground to try to stop Nick. * A short game of baseball that requires sticking Nick’s noggin on a headless zombie and having it run the bases to score three runs.Now, to mix up the cutting moments, Juliet must also perform some other, minigame-type challenges that can transform her chainsaw. Make no mistake that the action often requires a button-mashing skill set sure to sprain thumbs and cramp hand muscles as Juliet wipes out waves of attacking zombies that include ghastly farmers, firemen, cops, guitarists, teachers, construction workers and even bulls and chickens.Īmid the spurts of blood, decapitations and vivisections, Nintendo Mario moments also abound as once the zombies lose their noggins, out spews not only blood, but also a rainbow of glitter, hearts, rainbows, stars and gold coins.Įspecially successful hunters who take off at least three heads in a single attack get a special treat in a sequence I believe George Romero would see after taking a heavy dose of LSD while watching “Yellow Submarine.” That bizarre twist then takes the player on a roughly seven-hour-long, hack-and-slash journey down a psychedelic rabbit hole of depravity. Nick is now her wise-guy companion who can occasionally help her out of overwhelming situations by using his noggin on top of headless zombies.

Lollipop chainsaw concept art