If there's something that is missing form the lexicon of the good folks at Sega its probably the word subtlety. They where asked to produce a vaguely annoying azure tinted spiky git and they delivered. They where asked to realise a iconic 2d fighter game with graphics like a motion capture flick book and we got mortal combat, then the gaming industry grew up a little and they know full well that if they need to keep gamers hooked what they really need to do is produce a game with a capable, realistic female role model.
Unfortunately they got the design brief on opposite day and we have ended up with Bayonnetta a game so camp that you expect to see a park ranger walk across the screen and so brimming with try hard sexuality that all that it needs to make a whole generation of anime-video gamer geeks sterilise them self's from self inflicted masturbation wounds is a citreous shaped controller.
You assume the role of the titular Bayonnetta, who looks like a cross between Sarah Palin and a pole dancer with stilts for legs, she's a witch with a capital B. The plot is as impenetrable as a vestal virgin but if I can read a brief history of time I'll give it a go here:- Bayonnetta woke up with a very convenient form of narrative amnesia, only knowing that she was a witch and clad in a leather cat suit (made of her own hair...) started to kick the livening crap out of angles that look a little like the covenant would if they where dressed by the pope using Liberachi's bling. The irritating pound shop Joe Pesci character who sends you off to pick up some magical McGuffin (the eyes of the world), we're later introduced to Jeanne who's meant to come across as an enemy but since she was in a pre game scene as your alliy and also helps you fight the angels she seems to port in it comes across as kind of lame, in fact all the major NPCs in the game have a identity crisis there's this guy with girly hair and a doctor who scarf who ether wants to kill her or give her a ride on he's broom stick....and yes I did jut make a pun that bad. There's also a little girl who is somehow both a younger version of herself and her own daughter... okay, you know when I said that I understood the plot? That was a lie.
The game is utterly bonkers from the insane plot to the freak you the hell out looking enemy's to bosses that are the size of meteors. One place that the game dose do well is the realistic and visceral combat... you know I can't even finish that sentence she has guns on her feet and jumps around the screen like a hyperactive dominatrix on the amphetamines' only diet raining down death and destruction on anything white and gold, 'though fair play to diva-may-cry, sorry Bayonnetta, at least someone has made a game without feeling the need to have it viewed through a used coffee filter (yes I'm looking at you grand theft auto 4). Some attention has been Paid to the difficulty curve, the same level as say running head first into a brick wall....at full speed. No sooner do you get into your stride then you run into some golden cocked beast that opens a celestial can of whop-ass on you.
There are some nice touches here and there, during loading screens the game allows you to practise your myriad of combos, that's great but when your own your own its one thing, when your surrounded by the good lords finest it quickly descends into pointless and repetitive button mashing, the whole thing is interspersed by quick time events.
There's 2 schools of thought on QTE's one is that they are a worthwhile and graphically pleasing addition to games that hark back to the days when you needed quick reflexes as well as strategy and if well executed can make you feel like your in your own personal movie, the other is that there the very sperm of stamen that has gestated in the minds of lazy games designers who want to knock out as many title and produce decent looking "in game graphics" for online trailers.
Three guesses witch school I am part of? Although there not all press x to die, some are press B to make the other guy die (painfully and nastily) and of course some press Y not to die.
While we're on the standard features list there's a thing called witch time that operate like bullet time, a feature only marginally less common in action games now than a fuc*ing box. The interface is nice to look at but in-between the QTE's and the insane button mashing you sometimes end up squinting at a tiny little black leather clad matchstick taking on a god.
there are also some vehicle segments, one rather nice one where you jump from car to car speeding along the highway, a couple on a motorbike and one on a missile
yes a missile.
Bayonnetta is pretty standard and yes, it flows nicely but lets be honest here it doesn't bring anything new to the party, it in the world of video games is just one of the many party goers, not with the band, not one of the star guests, but also not one of the sad drunks pukeing into the plant pots.
