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Suda51’s ‘Lollipop Chainsaw’ is getting a remake
A new version of the 2012 hack-and-slash cult hit will arrive next year.
James Gunn on learning from Lollipop Chainsaw
Hollywood screenwriter/director James Gunn is working on the script for Lollipop Chainsaw, a game about a teenage girl using a magical chainsaw and cheerleading moves to kill zombies, with the help of her boyfriend's still-living, detached head.He seems to have some lofty ideas about games nonetheless. "In films, it's hard to say 'we're trying to do something new in a movie' -- it's kind of a simple thing," he told Joystiq in a GDC interview. "Games are infinitely more complex than film, and there's still so much stuff that hasn't been done, it's really exciting, because there's just so much untrampled ground. That's cool. There's so many things that haven't been done." Subtract putting an animate, disembodied head on a zombie body from that list -- that's now been done, and it's "the coolest thing in the world." For Gunn, Lollipop Chainsaw is a crash course in the world of game development. "When I was a kid, I used to make my own games on the computer, and I understood the basic dynamics of, basically, the 'choose your own adventure' style of how games worked," he said. "But being able to see it from the inside and how things worked -- just that balance between the gameplay and the storytelling aspect of it -- it's an interesting process the whole way through." He sees it as the kind of learning opportunity he had in the film industry, in which he came in as a screenwriter and "then I would just go ask everybody every question I possibly could about visual effects and how that works, and get to watch these directors direct." We can't wait to see what happens when Grasshopper Manufacture is your reference point for the video game industry.
Lollipop Chainsaw heads to US on June 12
At the Lollipop Chainsaw event this evening it was announced the game will cut into North American retail on June 12. We're sure to have more details from the event as the night goes on.%Gallery-149593%
Lollipop Chainsaw preview: Suck on this
Buffy the No More Heroes Zombie Slayer. That's the best way to sum up Lollipop Chainsaw at first glance. Featuring a Lichtenstein-inspired pop art HUD and over-the-top humor drawn from the Suda 51 vein, the game revels in the expected brutality of a zombie outbreak, but adds a dash of the unexpected with rainbows and sparkles following finishing moves and combos. Developed by Suda 51's Grasshopper Manufacture, the cult name-dropping doesn't stop there. Writer and director James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead, Tromeo and Juliet, Slither) created the script, while Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill, Shadows of the Damned) is handling music -- but none of his work is featured in the current demo. Yamaoka said during our Gamescom presentation, "This game will be crazier than it is now." A terrifying thought, since the game already has the crazy dialed to 11. %Gallery-130904%
Lollipop Chainsaw gets a debut trailer at Gamescom
Germany's Gamescom show has brought us this debut trailer for Lollipop Chainsaw, a new title in the works from developer Goichi "Suda51" Suda's Grasshopper Manufacture. As you can tell from the (scandalous!) footage above, the game's about a cheerleader named Juliet -- who also happens to be a zombie slayer with a chainsaw. The official site lists the location as "San Romero High School," and since American horror/comedy director James Gunn is also along for the ride, you can probably expect plenty of sly references like that one in the game. Lollipop Chainsaw is targeting a 2012 release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Natal game 'River Rush' revealed by film writer James Gunn
What is Project Natal's "River Rush" game, you ask? Well, it sounds an awful lot like Wii Sports Resort's canoe-paddling game, albeit minus the whole "physical controller" thing. Hollywood writer James Gunn (Dawn of the Dead, Slither) got to demo the game at a media preview held by Microsoft recently in Los Angeles, where the company was showing off its latest consumer offerings -- from Project Natal to the Courier to Halo: Reach (Gunn says he "was slaughtered instantly and numerous times by the Microsoft employees playing when they're supposed to be working" of Reach) -- and couldn't help but share his feelings about the experience with the world via his blog. Gunn describes River Rush as "a game where you stand side by side in a river raft, so it's two people playing at once ... to move right, you have to step right; to move left, you have to step left." The game also features a jumping mechanic that, as you might guess, involves players actually leaping into the air. "As you rush down right rapids, you have to jump up and slap floating stars in the air -- the whole raft jumps up every time you do." You'll forgive our reticence, but it only takes one life lesson to learn that jumping into the air blindly near friends and expensive technology almost always results in bad memories. We've asked Microsoft for more information, but the chances of that before the company's E3 press event are about as likely as us going upstream without a paddle. [Thanks, Jonathan Dixon]
Director complains about making Xbox video content
Though James Gunn's Xbox Live short dropped on the service last year, the director is just now voicing his distaste with the way Microsoft treated his production. The piece, named Sparky & Mikaela, was part of the Horror Does Comedy series released in late 2008. "I wasn't too happy with the version of S&M that was shown on XBox [sic], as they cut the living s**t out of it," he writes. He also notes that S&M wasn't his first attempt for the game publisher, saying he made "the most balls-out, f*****d up thing [he's] ever shot," named Humanzee, which was flat out rejected by Microsoft. While he voices his steadfast love for the system as a gaming platform, he calls the company, "the most dreadful, non-talent friendly company I've ever worked for" -- and one we're guessing he won't likely work with again.
