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The back alley is strewn with rubbish, and you see shambling shapes either side of the alley, closing you in both sides, whatever's coming in behind you cutting off your retreat. They might be slow, but they've got the numbers and you need to come up with a plan to get away...
Outside others of the dead, attracted by the noise are moving, the couple from the street already shambling towards the doorway, moving to block your exit and to cram in and get you. There might be a way out the back, but that's by no means guaranteed...
You've already been noticed by a couple of the dead on the road, though there don't seem to be too many around. They turn and begin to lurch towards you, one of them has no left arm and is riddled with wounds, the other is a whole, fresh-looking teenage girl, could have been someone from your school easily, but you've no time to care about that.
The shops have smashed windows here - the ones that still had glass when things went to crap - the rest seem relatively intact, even if some of the doors have been broken open. There's a small hardware store that you shove your way into, grabbing batteries and a torch still in its packet but freezing up as you hear a low, rumbling groan behind you, inside the shop.
You're out of breath and virtually dead on your feet, the most exercise you've had in forever, as you come to the dark, gaping mouth of a tunnel. The place where the railway becomes the underground. It looks dark, and anything could be hiding in there, it's enough to give you second thoughts...
Bayonetta looks like a spiritual successor to Devil May Cry but isn't really, it's hyper-styled to the point of absurdity, makes no sense whatsoever and yet somehow comes out being fairly fun, if a little short, to play. Bayonetta has all sorts of 'controversy' over its nudity (non existent) sexism (only from a certain point of view) and religious (yeah, but no, but yeah, but no...) content but none of that particularly lives up to the hype, which is odd, since everything else in the game leaves hyperbole miles behind and rockets, on fire and encrusted with diamonds, into ridiculousness for which the term 'over the top' is wholly inadequate.
Story
There isn't one.
Well, that's not entirely true. There is a story but it makes no sense. If I write it down it will appear to make more sense than it does in the actual game which is just, bonkers, so I hesitate to write it down for fear of misleading anyone.
Bayonetta is a witch, an outcast witch from an order called the Umbra Witches who are guardians of the dark and twisted side of things. Their male counterparts are the Lumen, male guardians of the light and a pseudo Christian cult which, like Devil May Cry 4, reveals more about the bizarre oriental concept of Christianity than anything else.
The Umbra and the Lumen are virtually no more, the one having been eliminated in the Witch hunts of medieval and Renaissance times, the Lumen... well that's not adequately explained but they may have killed themselves except for one of them and there's one witch that still survives too (they live a long time). For no readily apparent reason the witches employ gun fu as their primary mode of combat in defence of the dark and their own secrets, including using guns as high heels...
Bayonetta is the outcast half-breed of an illegal tryst between an Umbra and a Lumen, though emerging from her sleep she, apparently, takes side with the darkness and sets about kicking angel arse.
Oh, also she's an amnesiac.
Anyway, in recovering her memory she finds herself searching for an artefact that the angels also want, turns out the artefact is something unexpected, then there's a lot of even bigger fights and you punch god in the face.
And that write up is giving it all far too much credit.
Gameplay
I keep referring back to Devil May Cry because it's the best point of reference for an over-the-top fighting game with occult content, but while Bayonetta does feel a lot like DMC there are differences. Bayonetta has a lot more moves, weapons and weapon combinations. A bewildering array that you will never, ever, be able to remember. Unlike DMC there's also no exploration content or puzzles. Oh, sure, you have to run around a little here and there and you have to pick up objects to open things, but this is not done in a remotely complex manner and there's no depth for it. You'll find yourself pining for the nonsensical puzzles of DMC or Resident Evil.
The whole thing is extremely linear and the second half of the game is, really, just enormous boss-battle after enormous boss-battle, while well done, this can get repetetive and difficult, making the latter half of the game frustrating and more of a chore while the earlier levels had you whirling around and bringing death to crowds of smaller, less powerful angels, which was frankly more enjoyable.
The combat moves are elegant and amusing, the weapons interesting and the extra add ons accessories keep the fighting fresh at least and the moves flow well, so combat - which you'll be doing a lot of - is fun until the camera angles get annoying or you realise you're facing the same boss battle for the third time.
Atmosphere
You'll be too busy being bewildered to take in any atmosphere. What atmosphere there is peters out after the first few levels, where the holy city you're exploring gives you some sense of where you are, to be replaced by bewildering otherworldliness and sequences that are so over the top and changeable that you don't get time to settle in and smell the roses.
Graphics
The graphics are good, we bought the PS3 version which is a port, some people reported slow-downs with the PS3 version but other than the intentional slow-motion sequences I can't say we saw that. The extra 'oomph' of the PS3 probably compensates for the clumsiness of a lazy port from the 360 and I couldn't honestly imagine playing the game as well on a PS3 controller.
The characters and the backgrounds are stunning, Bayonetta is a little small even on a big screen to fully appreciate but when you do get a close look she moves well and looks good. The sequences are over the top, but well rendered and the annoying quicktime events do blend fairly seamlessly with the action and the cutscene sequences, which peculiarly makes them harder as you're not given as much warning that they're coming.
Bayonetta does get naked, but you don't see anything so that's not anything to concern yourself about. She gets naked because her catsuit is also a weapon and is used to fuel her demonic summoning, finishing attacks. Something which is also visually stunning.
Conclusion
This is a stripped down to the bone, hyperstyled fighting game with a thin veneer of plot. It runs out of even this feeble attempt at plot 50% to 65% of the way through the game and adds more explosions and boss fights to compensate. It's fun, but don't expect any deep story to come out of it. At 5-6 hours of play time it's also a bit expensive for the use you'll get out of it. You can replay the levels but if you're not that kind of person, who wrings every ounce of content from a game, you're likely to feel a little ripped off. Even FPS game single player campaigns usually last a minimum of eight hours.
We got the preorder version with the gun (Scarborough Fair) on a stand. The gun is weighty, but the paint job is terrible, as bad as the early run D&D miniatures, this was also a little disappointing.
Best played while feeling horny and on drugs.
Score
Style 5
Substance 2
Overall 3.5
You almost piss yourself with fear at the sound of them, there's something primal and hungry about the noise that sends shudders up and down your back. What's worse is that you vaguely recognise some of these people, faces you've seen in the crowds and never paid attention to in the past. That fills you with waves of guilt before you steel yourself, run, and jump, landing heavily a few metres from the back of the line of the dead, virtually winding yourself as you scramble up and they begin to turn.
You sprint, running for the station, despite the pain in your stomach and the fear making your heart pound. You dodge around a shambling, bloody thing in the alleyway and swing around the steps, jumping over a properly dead body as you pound up the stairs and onto the bridge that runs over the line, leaping down onto the roof of one of the platforms with a thump to catch your breath.
There's only two or three deaders around the station, but they know you're there, one's trying to climb the bridge behind you, the others are on the platform. Not far down the line a train rests, abandoned, doors open, still giving its announcements about evacuating the train, as it probably will until the power runs down...
Story
The story is a bit of a casualty to the mission structure and game play to start with, though threads emerge and little plot arcs with the various 'quest givers' do emerge. The information about Pandora is there to understand its background but you really have to pay attention as you whisk through the missions to really get an idea of what happened.
Pandora was a mining world run by one of the big interstellar corporations until they decided to pull out. In so doing they left behind a bunch of convict workers and everyone who couldn't afford to get off world. The injured, the perverse and those who simply enjoyed exploiting a frontier planet. Stories about the vault have brought other mercenaries here, along with members of larger mercenary forces,
ostensibly there to keep the peace. A job they fail at.
The planet is a broken down wreck, overrun by bandits, almost entirely populated by men and full of various forms of dangerous animal wildlife to get in the way. As you get closer to the vault - guided by a mysterious 'angel' - so do all the other forces of the planet, though many of them don't understand exactly what it is that they have...
Gameplay
You run around in first person mode, but you shoot. You level up like a regular RPG and this gives you points to put into special class abilities like in Diablo or World of Warcraft. When you shoot people they bleed, but numbers also appear over their head telling you how much damage you do. Weapons are like magic weapons in Diablo or WoW. They have special qualities and variable stats and come in
white/green/blue/purple/orange to let you know how rare and powerful they are.
Gameplay varies heavily by class and I haven't had a great deal of time to play every class yet. The soldier is an excellent generalist with a very useful throw-down turrent that provides cover, healing and ammo as well as shooting anyone who comes into range. The siren can teleport - after a fashion - to get out of trouble and can detonate herself like a bomb while the hunter is hell on wheels with a sniper
rifle and has a pet bat-like creature that can be used to attack enemies. The class I haven't played at all is a hulking great tank of a man that's supposed to be good in close combat.
There are vehicles, but they're all identical and a little fragile when it comes to firefights with a tendency to explode around you.
There's a good variety of enemies, but you will get tired of shooting 'skags' (wild, feral, armoured rat-dogs) before you're even out of the first area.
The RPG/First Person hybrid is annoying to start with, but eventually you settle into it and it no longer seems strange. One minor annoyance, though it's good simulation, is that there's a slight delay between firing a bullet and it striking the target which, for sniping, makes it much more difficult, especially on a console with the thumbsticks, to hit a moving target.
You can play online or cooperatively on your TV with someone in the same room. It's hard to see what's going on with a split screen (they did it vertically rather than horizontally) and online is full of arseholes, but this is true of any game and so Borderlands can't be told off for it really. I'd love to play a 4 player game with one of each character type, but I simply can't endure the online duel-spammers long enough to find such a group.
Atmosphere
Pandora is a desolate, desert world, littered with the trash and leftovers of the corporation that upped sticks and left people behind. It feels like a stereotype of a massive, America trailer park. Prefab, rickety buildings inhabited by hicks and freaks and with dangerous, gun-toting nutters all over the place. The overall feel is somewhere between that and the wild west and in some aspects almost reminds one of the old, cheesy SF film 'Space Hunter: Beyond the Forbidden Zone'.
The desperate feel of the planet is well represented but loses some of its edge thanks to the cell-shaded, cartoony feel of the graphics, which enhance the humour aspect of the game, but detract from some of the scarier moments, the big reveal and some of the aliens.
Overall you do get conveyed the fact that Pandora is a desolate shithole and that anyone who remains there is crazy, but to really get at the meat of the back-story you have to fiercely pay attention and to read absolutely everything you find as well as looking at all the little background details. It's there, but you have to work at it.
Graphics
The graphics are competent and cell-shaded, giving Borderlands a cartoony feel that's something like Heavy Metal without the tits. There's a lot of trash and detritus everywhere and while the scenery is sometimes a bit angular, harking back to 3d games from 5-10 years ago, overall it has a distinctive look and feel that works for the game. I would have liked it if they'd decided to either go a bit more realistic or a bit more cartoony and stylish, but the middle ground, while initially a bit niggling, becomes better as you play on through the game.
Conclusion
I rarely play a game through twice unless it REALLY grabs me. I'm on my second play-through of Borderlands, mostly because I want to use the higher level skill powers on my soldier character but also because the weapons are fun and I want to play with a larger gamut of them. The story and the missions are varied and fun enough that playing through a second time doesn't feel like a chore but a third time might be
pushing it. The classes are different enough that playing through with a different class may give enough of a different play experience that another play-through could be on the cards. It's a fun and quirky game and takes a few risks with the genres, something that's to be encouraged.
The first downloadable content, The Island of Doctor Ned, is a great comedic-horror romp that makes fun of both cheap re-skinned game expansions and horror tropes like zombies and The Wolfman. Well worth a download and a play. The second download - arenas and storage - doesn't seem as worth it to me.
Score
Style 4
Substance 4
Overall 4
With the TV off you're aware of the constant moaning outside and as you get up, quietly, so as not to disturb the kids, and look out of the window you see the mob of dead around the block of flats is now about three or four deep, constantly moaning and scratching and banging at the doors and windows. You can see more on the way too, shambling in from the surrounding area.
The morning light hurts your eyes so you retreat, carefully, to the flat you climbed up to, ransacking it, and your old flat for things you might need. Cereal bars, tins of soup and beans, bottles of water, torches, batteries, a couple of sharp knives, the golf club and a change of clothes.
You feel a little bad about abandoning these people, but it's not going to stay safe and you've not seen a copper or any of the military off the news around here. You're sure you're on your own...
The flat doesn't look like it's changed much since the 1970s, other than the big, flatscreen TV and the computer wedged into the corner. Not understanding the lingo you can't be sure if you're being told off or praised from bringing him back. None of them are speaking English though you're sure the younger ones speak it. Somehow you find yourself sitting in one of the arm chairs eating a Twix bar while the family argues around you. It's hot in here, full of so many people and with the electric bar fire running full blast.
Before you know it all the stress and excitement has caught up to you and you find yourself nodding off to sleep, your mind ticking away as to what you're going to do, feverish dreams playing out in your mind of various, horrible fates.
It takes a while for the two of you to understand each other and looking past him you see he's got much of his family in his flat with him, he must be the grandfather, but his kids and their kids seem to be in there as well. He takes a while to think about what you say and then turns to argue fiercely in his own language with the people inside, struggling to keep them quiet before he slips out to join you, tightening his grip in the sword.
"Let us go and take care of this yes? Then we can checking the doors and making sure all are well?" He grins at you through his bushy beard and moustache and moves ahead of you, trying to move quietly down the stairs and stumbling a little - he is old for all he's putting a brave face on things.
The thing that was once a man is already lurching, half crawling up the stairs and making slow going of it, an old joke about Daleks comes unbidden to your mind and makes you cough out an hysterical laugh as the dead man you stepped past in the hall jerks his head up and drooling, hissing, opens his mouth, lunging and half-falling up the stairs.
Your Sikh neighbour - you realise you never got his name, bellows something you can't make out in disgust and stabs down hard with his blunt old sword. It pierces the thing's back and spatters partly clotted blood all over the stairs, the sword twisted side to side in the thing's back. It doesn't even slow it down as it drags dirty, ragged nails against the Sikh's leg, tearing his trousers and ripping the skin beneath. He cries out, falling back himself onto the steps as the thing tries to climb up him, the sword waving crazily in its back as you close your eyes and hope for the best, lashing out with the golf club.
Your wild blows smack into its face, over and over as it tears and rips at the Sikh's legs, climbing up him with its talons, tearing off its own nails in its eagerness as your blows shatter its jaw, burst an eyeball like an old grape and finally still it, pieces of scalp, hair and blackening blood stuck to the end as it finally stills.
The SIkh binds his legs with pieces of torn cloth from his ruined trousers and the pair of you work together to fling the body from your balcony, it lands with a thump down below and in the sodium glare of the streetlights you see that many more of the dead have gathered around your building, now they surge to the body and you look away before you see something that you'll hate.
The Sikh is wincing in pain now, blood still trickling from his wounded legs, but between you, you make sure that the front and back security doors are properly locked and barricaded. Protection from criminals and vandals is keeping the dead out, thankfully, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. You're both worried about the windows of the ground floor flats, but that's something you'll need to deal with as a group.
Aside from you and the Sikh family only two more of the flats are occupied....
Basement: It's locked, only the managers have keys and they don't live on site.
Ground Level: Flat 1: Dot and Albert, Octogenarians. Flat 2: Empty.
First Floor: Flat 1: Empty, Flat 2: Dave, who works in IT.
Second Floor: Flat 1: Your home, Flat 2: Empty.
Third Floor: Flat 1: The dead neighbours flat, Flat 2: The Sikh family.
Storage: Storage areas for the owners of the block, they're locked, but not hard to get into.
Roof: There's nothing up here, but it's got a good view.
The inner door opens on a chain and a man whose face is all white beard and turban fills the gap, a rusty old sword in his hand held back from the door, his accent so thickly Indian that it takes you a moment to adjust and to figure out that he asked you what you want.
It's hell out there and you can't help but wonder what the fuck you're going to do.
The latest developments on these various scores are (with Cubicle7):
And with LPJ Design:
A setting that's coming together rapidly with some post-apocalyptic, necromantic, fantasy goodness. Click on the name above to link to the free previews.
Other than that I'm working, fitfully, on finishing 100 Conspirators and moving Agents of SWING forward, hopefully I'll have more information for you there soon!
Apart from the smell of blood this place is a much better prospect than your flat, they've got more food and drink up here and you could last a bit longer here. Plus there's even more stairs for these... things to have to climb up. Other than the usual kitchen knives and things the only potential weapons in here seem to be a set of golf clubs, but you reckon you could get a mean swing on those.
You build yourself up and swing, hard, but the bat clips the edge of the gate with a loud clang and barely grazes the side of its head. Desperately you swing again but this time it manages to grab hold of the bat and the sleeve of your hoody, dragging you close to the bars and baring its teeth with a hiss, drooling down its chin, face pressed against - through - the bars, trying to bite and tear at your flesh.
Desperately you pull back, forced to relinquish the bat, your sleeve torn, falling back on your arse inside the flat, cold sweat drenching your body as the thing holds the bat, stumbled back from the gate, holding it as though trying to remember what it's for. It sniffs the handle and bites it experimentally before dropping it idly to the side and trying to push through the bars again. The bat rolls out of sight in the hallway as you kick the door shut again.
Several of the channels try to cut to reporters that they have in the field, only to be unable to connect and the normally formal and calm newsreaders are becoming visibly more and more unsettled. This has come out of nowhere to sweep the country and all sorts of reports, none of them likely accurate, are coming in but aren't being reported - save as examples of dangerous craziness. After all, the dead can't come back to life can they?
You stare, disbelieving, at the television as this unfolds but you're not getting much the wiser, it's the same things over and over across the channels. Keep calm, stay indoors, the authorities are dealing with it. You watch and watch for hours and hours but you're not getting much wiser than that, though the sirens outside are getting louder and more cacophonus.
That didn't take long enough and that BLOODY scratching is still going on...
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