A Click Away From: Bayonetta

In one of the videos, the heroine proceeds to ask if we want to touch her, in her upper class English accent, before the camera proceeds to do what is probably the first full body shot of her impossible physique, before she proceeds to perform combat moves that defy the laws of everything. Welcome to Bayonetta, leave your sense of reality and judgement at the door.

Effectively if you absolutely hate the game industries need to make woman overly glamous and basically walking sex dolls, Bayonetta will make you grind your teeth in absolute rage. This game makes Lara Croft’s developing physique look like a poorly made doll in comparison. Finally getting Lara dirty? Pfft. Bayonetta will slap your face a couple of times, on how this is all about a heroine that will make you blush and giggle like a schoolgirl at every move she performs in game, before proceeding to throw in the final punch with a hilarious crescendo; her clothes are made of her hair. Performing a “climax” move to the end of a boss results in her unravelling her hair in order to create a large scale attack, leaving her standing quite provocatively in the nude, with only a couple of things and clever camera work stopping full frontal nudity.

It’s at this point you can hear the sound of a thousand many news press outlets getting very excited. Mass Effect sex scenes? Pale into signifance. Modern Warfare 2 airport scene? Who cares! This game has you play a woman who seems to enjoy getting naked and generally acting like a school teacher-cum-porn star with spectacles. Children being given porn! Ban this sick filth, etc.

If you survive this though, and you take it with the widest grin on your face, Bayonetta presents probably the most exciting, over the top, game that i’ve seen for a long while. This isn’t about the story (there is one…somewhere), this is about you playing a spectacle wearing leather clad witch beating the crap out of angels and demons with hilariously over the top combat combos and gun katana weaponry. Think Lara Croft put through a Japanese blender.

The result is something rather special. The short demo gives you an approximate idea of just how fun the full game is going to be, and how ridicolous it all is. Bayonetta will absolutely polarise the gaming community; she is over the top, impossibly sexy, stupidly fun. You’ll find yourself unable to stop staring at her arse if you put her into walking motion by gently moving the analogue stick. Combat is fast and can be challenging, both in the difficulty of some opponents and also just so you can create a fantastic combo move on your opponent. Weaponry in the demo varied between the guns Bayonetta carries and a katana, as well as weaponry dropped by the opponents. In one case tapping the right combination of buttons resulted in her performing a pole dancer spin around one the weapons, causing damage to any opponents in her way.

Performing enough successful combos and attacks without being damaged results in torture moves, in which you’re able to perform an attack that wracks up points and results in the combatent meeting a nasty end in different torture based scenarios; gullotines, spiked coffins, etc etc. The graphics hold up extremely well and look very polished, with boss battles smooth and without any hiccups or loss of frames.

And then there’s the finisher moves. As pointed out, her clothes are made of her hair, and her hair can be used to make powerful moves to perform a finisher on a boss. If you’ve got this far and are still interested, i’m sure you won’t mind a bit of nudity, even if it has to be the most ridicolous of situations it’s used in. Indeed Bayonetta has gone for probably the most unique finisher move ever conceived in video game history.

Overall though the demo to me presented a very appealing looking game, but it’s important to note the “to me” part of my sentence. This game will absolutely rip apart player opinions. To those cautious because of the sexual themes, I say give it a try as you’ll find it’s a very over the top, camp, and generally very fun game to play. The demo is available on all console online marketplaces. We’ll give our verdict when it comes out in January.

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