Preview: Bayonetta First Climax Demo

A demo was recently released on Xbox Live and Playstation Network in Japan. Luckily, we were able to get ahold of that very same demo. The game is presented by Sega, and that part becomes laughably obvious very quickly, as your character seems to have an affinity for little Gold Rings (ala Sonic the Hedgehog). I didn’t see a purpse for them in the demo, though I quickly racked up about a thousand!

I played through the demo very quickly using it’s default settings. It’s quite easy to get a basic grasp of the controls, but the tutorial mode lets you know that there is a long road ahead to becoming a master.

A few unanswered questions loom from the Bayonetta demo. Fore most in my mind, why the semi-transparent angels won’t interact with you, but fire your weapon and they’ll run like pedestrians in a Grand Theft Auto game. Still, the game play was a very fun experience.

Gameplay was very much like these 3rd person action games thrive on. Mash away at the buttons on your controller, and watch your on screen character seamlessly weave a quilt of combos.

Stealing gigantic weapons from angels, including a trumpet that acts as a rocket launcher, is a quick and easy way to turn the tables of a fight that isn’t going your way. I actually wish the battles were a little more hectic and there were a few more baddies to ping-pong your combos off of.

Anyone who has seen a review or a preview here at WinBreak before, knows that two of my pet peeves are graphics and voice acting. And unfortunately, this is where the game suffers. The music is fantastic, and picks up when you enter combat, much the way the game Wet does. Sadly, the battle clashing sounds aren’t anything ground breaking, your standard crash bam boom stuff. Voice acting is laughably terrible, including the taunt “I’ve got a fever, and the prescription is dead angels.”

The graphics also seem very PS2 era. The environments are much more beautiful and scaled more to the size we expect these days. But I can’t get over the fact that the graphics just don’t meet expectations. They feel washed out, and even the cut-scenes / FMV’s which are pre-rendered, show signs of compression – something that a game on DVD or BluRay probably shouldn’t need! It all looks too much like a PlayStation 2 era game.

The game is extremely self-aware, much like the game I already compared it to, Wet. It’s funny, a little bit camp, but it’s actually quite fun. It plays to Sega fans, and falls right in to the “hot chick kickin’ butt” category that it wants to be a part of oh so well. It’s worth checking out, but don’t expect the wonderful graphical adventure that Heavenly Sword was. But you will certainly enjoy using your feet to shoot semi-automatic weapons!

PS3 "Slim" – Re-Confirmed by KMart


click to enlarge

We’ve heard a lot of rumors, people snickering in podcasts, “guessing” that there will be a new “slimmer” PS3 launching soon… but if you want any further kind of confirmation, take a look at the KMart website, today! No pictures, yet, but seems pretty official, don’t ya think?

Nothing super special here, but just wanted a simple news post to show that the site is still alive and I’m working on some fun stuff.

[Update 1] Hacking the Kojima Flash animation

To see the timer as it exists, check out the Kojima Productions website.

http://www.konami.jp/kojima_pro/next/frame.swf?lmt01=20090518100000&lmt02=20090519100000&lmt03=99999999999999&lmt04=99999999999999&lmt05=99999999999999
The above link cuts the counter from 80 hours down to about seven hours. Unfortunately, more tweaking beyond that always results in a black screen. Each section of the address that begins with “&lmt0” separates each timer, you can modify each one in hopes it unlocks something special. I will keep working it at, hopefully using some of the things that the ShogunGamer folks have discovered.

Some people think it’s too early for another Metal Gear Solid, but I wouldn’t expect the developers to let such a great game engine go to waste so soon – they should be able to crank out a few games before doing any major overhauls on this glorious piece of code. Still, the final timer seems to be set to expire on the same day as Microsoft’s E3 presentation. Could it be the Metal Gear Solid franchise coming to Xbox 360? Either way, anyone who doubts that this is for Metal Gear Solid should just take a look at the image above… the website’s metatags are clearly marked up with “MGS” and “Metal Gear Solid” – and with the “5” flashing in the lightning of the flash animation, it seems clear cut what this counter is going to show us next. At least, it seems more obvious than the last timer Kojima Productions did!

note: minutes before publishing this article, I was able to get the timer down to about 10 minutes – I will watch to see if it fades straight to black or if it leads to another image/animation. I will update the article with my results.

UPDATE 1: So far, nothing:

It has just sat there for a couple of minutes. Please comment and let us know if you make any progress, I do believe modifying the URL with the information gained from ShogunGamer’s website might show progress!

Capcom: still making games for all platforms!

This picture comes to us by way of 1up… and it shows just how out of hand console fanboys can get sometimes. It also shows what appears to be a proposed number of titles developed for 2010-2013. The last few days I’ve been reading articles on how the PS3 is Capccom’s new platform of choice. Some articles suggested they were swayed by the incentives package recently proposed by Sony, offering PSN developers a bigger cut of the sales. Another article suggested that the PS3 had a large line up of exclusives, and the Xbox 360 would be getting some table scraps. Countless websites were making it sound like Capcom was abandoning the Xbox 360 and intended to become a Playstation-centric developer. A lot of focus has been placed on the numbers: 12 to 13. Everyone wants to know what the ONE PS3 exclusive title will be. How soon we forget.

Articles like that, which will popup continually throughout the day, suggest that the other 12 games will be the same on both platforms. First of all, both of these platforms will be getting a plethora of attention from Capcom, so I don’t think anyone needs to worry about what game to play in the next few years. Some websites suggest that also includes titles from this year. If that’s true, consider this: Xbox 360 seems to have lost Dead Rising 2 exclusivity, and according to all accounts Dead Rising 2 will be multiplatform, PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. However, the Xbox 360 should be getting Lost Planet 2, which, at this time, is still considered an exclusive. PS3 and PC versions are likely in the works, but if it remains an exclusive, that is one less game they have in common. Which would mean two exclusive titles for the PS3 *gasp*! I know, it’s enough to make mountains crack… but why don’t we all just breathe in for a second and relax.

Got that? Relaxed? Less tense? Good… now, why don’t we brainstorm how 8 “new” titles could possibly run on the Nintendo Wii? What’s next for them? Dead Rising 2: Chopping Spree?