The Horror Geek – News, Rants and Reviews From The Horror Geek!

This magical week of E3 goodness is drawing to a close (which is sad…), but that doesn’t mean I have nothing left to show you before normal life resumes its relentless attempts to crush your very soul.

For example, here’s Tecmo’s new PSP title, Undead Knights. One common refrain over the years from gamers has been “hey, why can’t we play games as the bad guy?” No one ever gives  a satisfactory answer for why this is (and to be fair, there have been some recent games where you can play as the villain), and now gamers who want to explore their dark side will have another opportunity to do it when this game eventually hits shelves.

Basically, a family of three is killed for daring to speak out against the new queen. They make a deal with a demon, though, who resurrects them and grants them the power to turn their downed enemies into zombies. Said zombies are then unleashed upon the living in a quest for vengeance. I suppose it’s debatable if players are actually the “villains” of this game, but turning the living into the undead isn’t exactly your normal heroic behavior under any circumstances.

At this stage, it appears as though players will be able to control up to ten zombies at once and use them as fighters or as a puzzle-solving mechanic. According to IGN’s early look at the game (which also features a bunch of screenshots), they can be tossed at large enemies in order to weigh it down (making it easier for you to then run in and bring the pain) or lined up to be utilized as undead bridges or ladders. Sounds pretty cool.

Undead Knights is due out later this year. Here’s a look at the game’s trailer, which is sadly devoid of actual gameplay footage.

While everyone and their brother is busy raving about GDC and artsy games like Braid, Flower, and Little Big Planet, I’ve spent the past few days with Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad-which is about as far from artsy as you can get. Don’t feel bad for me, though-because frankly, I’m tired of the whole “are games art?” debate and the bullshit pretentiousness that tends to sprout up like weeds whenever someone starts to discuss Flower. In fact, my new mantra may very well be fuck games where the artistic experience is more important than fun and the people who spend endless hours pontificating on them and how they fit into the ludologist manifesto”. At times like this, I remember one of the many classic Bruce Willis lines from The Last Boy Scout-bad guy Milo says to Willis “I would like to hear you scream in pain” and Willis’ deadpan reply is “play some rap music”. You wanna hear me scream? Mention ludology.

Anyway, Onechanbara isn’t art by any stretch of the imagination-and I’m cool with that. It’s a borderline retarded action game featuring Japanese women running around in implausible outfits and slaughtering hordes of incredibly stupid zombies with katanas and guns. It sounds cooler than it really is (I’ll explain that shortly), yet there’s still some undeniable charm at work in the title. Or maybe it’s not charm at all-it could just be the gigantic breasts, which bounce around in a sort of hypnotizing way. Whatever it is, the game manages to overcome most if its design issues (of which there are many) and offer up some fun almost in spite of itself. Since comparing games to film is still all the rage these days, Onechanbara is like a grindhouse classic. It sucks from a technical perspective, but it’s so outlandish and unabashedly stupid that it gains a following in spite of the issues. It reminds me a lot of Tokyo Gore Police for some reason…probably because of the whole scantily clad katana-wielding hot Asian chick thing.

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