Cover for Lollipop Chainsaw. Photo / Supplied
As you've probably guessed, this R18-rated title isn't exactly sweet or innocent, but it does offer some very tidy third-person zombie chopping fun, albeit in a slightly dubious package. You play as Juliette, a high-school cheerleader and legacy zombie hunter.
The school/world is being overrun by evil after a strung-out
emo high school kid somehow bridges the real world and the trans-dimensional Rotten World.
Of course, a booby cheerleader in an extremely short skirt is the one tasked with saving it. It does sound hugely dodgy, but there is an excellent tongue-in-cheek humour throughout the on-rails third person hackfest, with even the zombies busting out one-liners.
In terms of gameplay, it's really just chainsaw and pop-pom (melee) combat in fairly cliched environments - but it's the brain-sucking undead who are the real stars here. We've got the set - zombies with bombs, flaming zombies, giant bogan zombies, quick ones, sorority bitch zombies - the list goes on. Despite appearances, this is a fairly challenging title - careful, considered use of combos, upgrades, health packs and power-ups are needed to get decent points, and progress is marked with a steep difficulty curve.
It does keep you repeating levels to improve your "report card" after beating the boss. Repetition of levels does quickly reveal the importance of strategy, but these paths are only useful until the game difficulty level gets bumped up, and the hordes change enough to get you killed.
