Lollipop Chainsaw

Warner Bros. recently announced the release date for Suda 51’s latest slaughterfest, Lollipop Chainsaw, at the game’s GDC 2012 event in San Francisco, California. Besides learning the anticipated title’s release date, we also got a chance to step into the sneakers of Juliet Starling and lay waste to some undead in a freaky arcade.

The stage begins with Juliet and her headless boyfriend, Nick, riding shotgun on her father’s motorcycle. Juliet’s dad, Gideon, is a rockabilly greaser-type with a protective streak. Juliet and her dad are planning a rescue mission to save her sister Rosalind from an evil funkadelic overlord at a zombie-riddled arcade.

Kicking ass in the arcade felt natural and fun. Lollipop Chainsaw is a fairly button-mashy excursion. Sure, you can methodically time swipes of the chainsaw, but blindly brandishing the candy-coated power tool is just as effective. I dug sawing zombified video game nerds in half with the push of a few buttons. Juliet’s flashy acrobatics and short-skirted antics are mixed up with some quicktime events as well. Several times I took on the role of Juliet’s decapitated boyfriend, Nick, as his noggin was placed on a hapless corpse and piloted through some unique scenarios. In one instance, I executed timed button prompts to team up with Juliet for a high-flying cheerleader trick to launch the heroine to a high platform.

The slicing and dicing was also mixed up with some retro gameplay. Juliet is sucked into a video game during her stint in the arcade. I trekked through Suda 51 versions of Pac-man and Elevator Action during my time with the game. Securing keys while avoiding the ravenous, pixelated predators was a good time. So was sawing through one of the Pac-man wannabes from the inside out after being swallowed alive.

One of Shadows of the Damned’s highlights was easily its boss fights, and the same goes for Lollipop Chainsaw. I faced off with Josey, a funky, neon pink hybrid of Baron Samedi and Bootsy Collins. The keytar-wielding superstar flies a UFO around a circular arena while players take pot shots with the chainsaw blaster. Fortunately, gunplay in Lollipop Chainsaw feels just as reliable as in Shadows of the Damned. I loved gunning down Josey’s spaceship while dodging the 8-bit bombs being tossed towards me. The altercation concluded with Juliet and her father teaming up to cleave the funkmaster’s starship in half while rescuing Rosalind. We’re not sure what exactly led up to Juliet and the gang needing to rescue her sister, but we’re looking forward to seeing what happens next in the bizarre tale.

Grasshopper Manufacture proved it still has the chops to deliver a quirky, fun experience with Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw appears to be continuing the legacy. We had a blast experiencing just one night fighting flesh-eaters as the vivacious Juliet, and can’t wait to see what else is in store for us leading up to the game’s June 12 release date.