PLAY AT E3: Bayonetta

Bayonetta was a title I was looking to get some time with at E3 because of a suggestion from a friend.  Luckily I got that time on the second day, but it was the last thing I did before leaving on Wednesday and I haven't had time to write it up... until now!

Bayonetta looks great.  Its really flashy and fast paced.  Sometimes I couldn't really see what Bayonetta was doing on screen because her suit unravels around her and it just looks like something is striking out at an enemy.  It doesn't really matter though because everything is rendered at a blistering pace.  The E3 build had terrific frame rate and there were few jaggies to be seen.

As far as story goes, none of it made any sense.  The enemies looked to have halos and cherub-like faces.  Are they supposed to be angels and Bayonetta is fighting back or something like that?  When facing a boss, the culmination of all your attacking is a prompt on screen telling you to press Y and B (on the 360 version, is the game multiplat?).  This summons a gigantic demon head from Bayonetta's clothing.  It was cool, but the cheese factor was high on this one as barely a few shreds of clothing keep from revealing Bayonetta.

One touch I really liked (and I don't know if this will be in the final build) is that during loading screens, you can control Bayonetta and view a combo list.  This was nice because I could see some of the combos before leaping into action and just mashing against enemies.  It made it seem like there was more to the game than you would think.

The Devil May Cry influence is definitely there.  You can fire your pistols at enemies with the X button while Y and B are for punches and kicks.  The gunfire seemed to interrupt the combos, but your hit count just keeps carrying on while you reposition yourself for your next volley of attacks.

Bayonetta looks great (the game...) and I look forward to playing more when it drops later this year.