Bikini's and Zombies....

What could be better than a couple pre-teen, Japanese speaking, zombie slaying, chicks wearing bikini's??? How about bamboo shoots under your finger nails, that should give you some perspective on how the rest of this rant will go.

Remember when the old NES controllers "A" and "B" buttons would eventually wear out? Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is an attempt to wear out your Xbox controller's buttons and your own spirit. This simple hack and slash game is brutal.

I have played about 2 hours of this game. I would like to tell you that I made it to stage...level... but I can't make heads or tails of how the levels work. When I look at the achievements there is one for completing Quest No. 1 LV 1 ~3......WTF does that even mean? I played to 5 something.

There are a few hints of graphic accomplishment. I mean the floor of the parking garage, looks real. It looks fantastic. Well it ends there. The blood splatter on the screen is a nice touch, but quickly grows stale. The zombies are on par for a Xbox game, not a 360 game. The cut scenes are well put together and represent the rare highlight of this game.

The controls are borderline insane. I truly believe you could finish this whole game without ever hitting another button besides A. Oh you can lock on a zombie with the RB but with 2 sword slashes they are reduced to pieces? Why lock on at all. In certain parts of the game, using the right trigger will switch between 2 characters. You can jump!!! The only hint of uniqueness to this game is a interesting sword unload mechanism. Once your sword gets bloody, you must unload the blood with a swing of the sword. Does not really add anything at all to the game.

Lets talk a little about the camera work.

What the frick where they thinking? The camera work in this game is a slap in the face. The camera is often stuck facing your character. Awesome!! This forces you to look at the mini map and swing your bloody sword at red dots. FUN !! A huge step back in the world of gaming. This right here is reason enough never to play this game. Do not reward this developer with any of your money for their shawdy work.

But what about level design you ask? Well I hope you like backtracking and retracing your steps. This mess of a game has you walking to random squares on a map, killing some zombies, picking up a random key type object, walking back to unlock a door to another square. Seriously, these levels must have been designed on a etch-a-sketch.

This rant is running long, so in all fairness I will force myself to play some more and re-post a follow up review. I just wanted to vent my frustrations and alert others to this poor excuse of a Xbox 360 game. I have played better games on a turbo graphix. This junk feels rushed to market, never beta tested, and technically flawed.

Stay tuned to Achievement Unlocked for more on this game.