Bayonetta
Normally I think of January as a bit of a quiet month on the gaming front, with most of us still recovering from Christmas pudding and the likes of MW2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Uncharted 2, you would think we would all need a rest. In days gone by this was the case, and it was nice to think I could set January aside to do something constructive like – write a novel or paint self portrait. But before I could get pen to paper or the brush-to-canvas Sega goes and does something stupid like releasing Bayonetta, completely ruining my plans for January.
The game comes straight from the minds of the Japanese developers at Platinum games, who’s team brought us such classics as Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 2 and Okami, but throughout their extensive career there has been a game the team always dreamt of making but never could. Bayonetta is this game, and believe me what they have done is create 2010’s first must have title which completely ruined my novel.
Bayonetta ruined my January!
Upon my first play two things struck me – the stunning visuals and the leading ladies slightly disturbing similarity to Sarah Palin. But don’t let that put you off, if Palin looked this good she might have won twelve months ago. Anyway once you’ve soaked in the visuals and got over the Palin’a’like the game is easy to pick up and amazing to play. The primary focus is on combat, and shares a lot in common with it’s older cousin Devil May cry, but takes that format and turns it into furious button mashing masterpiece. But if you want to hone those mashing techniques, each loading screen gives you a ‘practice zone’ to hone those awesome combos. It can also appeal to all gamers from the casual to hardcore player with the choice of difficulty levels that will make each player feel they are getting a rich, varied experience. Throughout the game you also have to collect halos to upgrade to better weapons, but they seem to share striking resemblance to rings from sonic games which can make the game feel like a surreal 90’s platformer.
As well as the sublime combat experience with the stunning visuals, the game has an absorbing storyline. It takes place in a fictional European city called Vigrid and revolves around Bayonetta who was revived twenty years ago from the bottom of a lake and has no memories of her past and is setting out to find the person with the ‘Right Eye’, an artifact that’s linked to her past, hoping that it may help her regain her memory.
Overall Bayonetta is a ray of light for Japanese games development and games developer’s from around the world are waking up in a cold sweat knowing this isn’t on their CV. If this is just a taster of what 2010 has to offer I can’t wait for the year to move into full gear!
