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| Also on Xbox 360 |
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Juliet isn't having the best birthday. Sure, she's a chirpy,
fresh-faced, popular 18-year-old cheerleader with a perfect body and a
loving family, but her handsomely chiseled boyfriend has turned into a
zombie, and things just aren't looking up. But Juliet's nothing if not
resourceful, so she does what any right-thinking teenager would: she
cuts off his head with a chainsaw, performs a bit of black magic, and
ties his still-sentient head around her waist.
Clearly, you aren't supposed to take Lollipop Chainsaw seriously. You
play as the sucker-loving Juliet, who, like the rest of her family,
happens to be a zombie hunter. As luck would have it, her hometown is
having a bit of trouble with the undead, and it's up to her and her
chainsaw to slice and dice her way through her high school, across a
baseball field, and through other mundane locales rendered all askew by
vibrant neon-colored graphics and a general disregard for social
propriety.
Just how improper
is Lollipop Chainsaw? The opening cutscene
features a just-18 Juliet welcoming you to her bedroom while the camera
lovingly caresses her bare torso. She complains that she's getting fat
from sucking on too many lollipops, though she has a physique women of
any age would envy. Later, a high school classmate, saved from a zombie
attack, happily calls out that he'll pleasure himself to thoughts of
Juliet that night; elsewhere, a zombie-fied football player growls that
he'll--well--let's just say the activity involves Juliet's noggin lodged
somewhere you don't expect a noggin to comfortably fit.
Meanwhile, the screen explodes with pink hearts, yellow stars, and a
million other bedazzlements, amping up the "cheerleader" theme just as
Lollipop Chainsaw amps up its "sexual imagery" theme. Cheery pop tunes
like Toni Basil's "Mickey" and "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" from
Dead or Alive brighten the tone, too. With such touches, the game makes a
clear attempt to take the pure pandering of Onechanbara
(another game about scantily clad zombie killers) and twist it into
something cheeky rather than downright crude. The first hour, however,
takes these themes to the limits without doing much to outright parody
them, which can be mightily uncomfortable. Eye-opening remarks about
Juliet's breasts and anorexia references have shock value, but many of
these early "jokes" are hardly clever.
.JPG)
