The fastest way to go completely insane

Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen! I hope everyone had a regrettable end to two-thousand and nine, followed by a loud and obnoxious start to twenty-ten. The doom-curse of family meant I was without gaming over the Christmas break (unless you count using my mother's Nintendo DS to find out I am 72 years stupid), but I made up for it by spending four straight days with my eyes glued to my TV as soon as I got back.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360, PS3 - MA15+) came out last week, and I now own it, along with the soundtrack CD, art book and replica Scarborough Fair handgun that I never posed with in the mirror because shut up you can't prove anything. Having played through the entire game, I have to correct my previous opinion: the game is not awesome. It is, in fact, so far beyond awesome that the word which describes it has not been invented yet.

The combat is super fast, extra smooth and damn good fun. The only thing more fun than beating up a hodge-podge mythical creature at high speed is beating up fifty of them at once. Bayonetta has guns (two in her hands and two strapped to her feet), swords, bazookas and clawed gauntlets with elemental powers. She also has the aforementioned MAGIC HAIR which multitasks as giant hands, dragons, crushing devices, a guillotine, a humungous lava spider, a demonic conduit and clothing for our heroine. These tools let you string together a mad whirlwind of blows on your enemies that will make people watching the game think you are the Hindu god of Taking It Up A Notch.

The story and characters are ridiculous in the extreme. As if your lollipop-headed stripper witch wasn't far enough out there, you are soon introduced to a bumbling gangster, a big black demon who makes weapons out of magic vinyl records, and a slightly less Penthouse-ish witch rival with white hair. The plot is something about the balance of the universe being at risk due to a shiny object and not enough things being punched. Your job is to punch your way through a holy city until you find out what the hell is going on and how you can punch it. Somehow this involves escorting your daughter and flirting with a reporter who dresses like Doctor Who. Sometimes you flip between the dimensions of heaven, hell and purgatory. Sometimes you breakdance.

Along the way, Bayonetta manages to find credible reasons to perform wrestling moves on a two-headed dragon, blow up a series of petrol tankers while riding a motorcycle, get into fights on top of two separate airplanes, fly into space, and conduct an impromptu dance party. When feeling particularly Better Than You, she fights to the tune of Fly Me To The Moon.

Enemies come in a gleeful array of shapes and sizes. There are staff-wielding Egyptian warriors, demonic wheels of fire, flying cherub heads, living cars, and giant Viking ships that have faces.The bosses are a special highlight: huge chicken-resembling hydras with upside-down faces, a behemoth with tentacles that shoot missiles and lasers, a salamander that has a control room and wings with handbrakes, a spinning, floating, giant head that vomits out smaller heads, as well as other things I can't legally tell you about in case the massive influx of amazing causes cardiac arrest.

Oddly, the game is not embarrassing. A title about a hot witch that gets naked every time she fights, ticks about a dozen fetish boxes, punishes lusty female enemies by tying them up, and spreads her legs at the press of a button seems like it should be kept under your bed with the dirty magazines and unusual toys. But everything is so very silly that it becomes harmless. Bayonetta is a caricature of the classic female video game character. Hypersexualised to the point of absurdity, and so self-aware and insane that you don't mind if your wife catches you playing with her (although mine is worried I may elope with the woman).

In short, go and buy this. You will enjoy this game if you enjoy third-person action games at all, or if you have eyes and fingers. You will not enjoy this game if you don't buy it. As a game it's a superb, polished experience with the chance for both fun and a challenge. As an experience it will keep you on the edge of your seat, if the seat was actually a giant pulsing brain that screams obscenities and emits disco lighting while molesting your face. If I gave scores I would give it a 10 out of something.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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RJ   #1   03:14 pm Jan 14 2010

WHY SO HYPERBOLE