lollipop chainsaw
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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.
Lollipop Chainsaw cleaves through one million sales worldwide
Lollipop Chainsaw, a game where cheerleader Twilight Sparkle Bubbles Timmy Turner Juliet Starling (or all of the above, since they're all voiced by the same person) slices and dices undead hordes with her trusty chainsaw, has surpassed one million sales worldwide. Developer Grasshopper Manufacture announced the news Friday on Twitter. It's an accomplishment that took more than a year and a half, but developer Suda 51 and his team at Grasshopper Manufacture seem more focused on the positive; they're celebrating with deep discounts on the game's digital version in Japan. Everything's sunshine, lollipops and rainbows here! [Image: WB Interactive]
Lollipop Chainsaw 'Premium' and 'Valentine' editions coming to Japan
We're not sure if y'all are aware of this, but Valentine's Day works way, way differently in Japan than it does here. Boys traditionally don't give Valentines to girls, for instance; women are the primary gift-givers, and generally speaking giving anything other than chocolate is atypical.There's also two new Lollipop Chainsaw special editions coming out exclusively in Japan this Valentine's Day, but that's less of a cultural difference and more of a marketing thing. The game's new "Premium Edition" will cost ¥3,980 (about $48) and will include codes to unlock costumes and additional character voices.Meanwhile, the ¥4,980 ($60ish) "Valentine Edition" includes a "Happy Valentine Disc," which contains a PC desktop Juliet clock, wallpapers and various gravure pictures of the game's official cosplay models. It also comes with a "Premium Movie Disc" full of trailers and cinematics, as well as a Lollipop Chainsaw manga and the Premium Edition's unlock codes.No word yet on a potential North American release of either version, but we have learned that the Japanese phrase "義理チョコ" (giri-choko) means "obligatory gift chocolate," which is probably more entertaining in the long run.
Lollipop Chainsaw ships 700,000, Grasshopper's highest numbers to date
Lollipop Chainsaw shipped over 700,000 units worldwide, making it the most shipped game in Grasshopper Manafacture's history. Grasshopper CEO Suda 51 and Japanese publisher Kadokawa Games proudly announced the figure at the game's 'Summer Appreciation Event' in Tokyo. The news comes a year after Shadows of the Damned only sold 24,000 units in its first week at US retail, so success for Grasshopper's major release of 2012 must come as welcome relief.Suda 51 also used the event to show off a new trailer for Killer is Dead, the studio's latest work in progress, which apparently will star a katana-wielding cyborg. That's something to look forward to when the game comes out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year.
Silver Lining: Lollipop Chainsaw and the failure of satire
'Silver Lining' is a column from freelancer Taylor Cocke dedicated to highlighting moments of real potential in less than perfect games. This week he examines Grasshopper Manufacture's Lollipop Chainsaw. The following may contain story spoilers. There's an idea on the Internet called Poe's Law. Basically, it states that if a satirical piece is indistinguishable from the subject it is trying to mock, then it's a failure. It was designed to relate to extremist ideologies like those of the Westboro Baptist Church, but the idea can be extrapolated to just about any attempt at satire. And in the case of Lollipop Chainsaw, it's absolutely applicable.On its face, Lollipop Chainsaw has all the makings of a solid parody title. First off, it's a Suda51 joint, meaning it has a certain lighthearted over-the-top attitude that lends itself well to parody. It was also penned by James Gunn, who has made his career mocking movie tropes with films like Dawn of the Dead, Super, and the vastly underrated Slither. These are guys experienced in making weird, hilarious stuff.The game itself obviously doesn't take itself seriously. Just take a look at the cover: a scantily clad young woman carrying around a chainsaw while the head of her boyfriend hangs off her belt. It's an undeniably silly image, and one that seems to be making fun of the roles women traditionally inhabit in games. Here's a clearly over-sexualized young woman, carrying a massive chainsaw, and essentially dehumanizing her male counterpart.But it never quite makes the turn that satire must make to work. In a gaming landscape that involves a whole lot of problematic images of women, pointing out the absurdity of these portrayals could have been something incredibly valuable. Instead, we get the same old tired jokes about sexuality that we've been hearing for years and years.%Gallery-130904%
Lollipop Chainsaw review: Missing the sweet center
Reviews of mediocre games are generally the hardest to write. While it's as effortless to dole out shining praise as it is to spew acrid condemnation, elucidating the merits of something that is neither great nor awful is considerably more difficult. Normally, that would be the case for Lollipop Chainsaw, which neither truly excels or completely fails in any particular area.As I said, that would be the case – if only developer Grasshopper Manufacture hadn't already delivered excellent examples in the character action genre, giving us the perfect lens with which to suss out Lollipop Chainsaw's faults.%Gallery-149593%
Lollipop Chainsaw's Akira Yamaoka-laden licks now available
Lollipop Chainsaw is out right now, but it wouldn't be complete without some aural stimulation: The Lollipop Chainsaw soundtrack, featuring tunes from Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), is available today as well. The soundtrack includes collaborations between Mindless Self Indulgence's Jimmy Urine and Yamaoka, and a few licensed tracks from Five Finger Death Punch, The Chordettes and others.Check out the album's full track list, launched in North America by WaterTower Records, right here:
Meet Lollipop Chainsaw's co-Starlings
The weirdest thing about Juliet Starling's sisters in Lollipop Chainsaw isn't their gleeful violence or absolute confidence that they won't shoot and/or drive through their cheerleader sis while performing insane gun and bus stunts.No, the weirdest thing is that they fight zombies – inexplicably animated corpses – constantly, but react with delight at the news that Juliet's boyfriend is just a head.%Gallery-153669%
Behind the musical bosses of Lollipop Chainsaw
For everyone who looks at a punk rock zombie or a heavy metal Viking and thinks, "I wonder what inspired his taste in music?"
Introducing Lollipop Chainsaw's 'Bosses of Zombie Rock'
You met the voice cast of Lollipop Chainsaw. Now see their handiwork, in this introduction to the boss characters. In this case, "handiwork" means "yelling profanity," to a certain extent.
Lollipop Chainsaw voice cast is relatively star-studded
You may recognize Michael Rosenbaum, voice of the head-on-a-lanyard Nick, as Lex Luthor from Smallville, or as The Flash from the Justice League cartoons. So he went from playing a bald guy to a guy with hair but nothing else. Or, if you prefer, he went from The Flash to a character incapable of ... flashing?All right, if you want jokes that make some reasonable amount of sense, watch the video and have them delivered to you by a team of professionals including Tara Strong, Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry.
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%
So what's up with that disembodied head in Lollipop Chainsaw, anyway?
When looking at screens of Lollipop Chainsaw, we're certain your eyes drift naturally to one of Juliet's most eye-catching features ... the severed head strung to her hip. This new trailer tells the romantic story of how she cut her boyfriend's head off, as an act of love.
Lollipop Chainsaw pre-order outfits include a famous chainsaw wielder
The press release announcing pre-order costumes for Lollipop Chainsaw jokes that "Juliet won't be in her birthday suit," instantly making us feel terribly self-conscious about what WB thinks our interest in the game is about.Said pre-order costumes actually sound pretty amusing -- it's a shame they're all spread out across different retailers at launch. Amazon will allow you to dress Juliet in "Rockabilly" gear, Best Buy offers "Goth Girl" and "Foxy Funk," and GameStop includes an Evil Dead Ash costume. It's a cute visual reference and it's practical clothing!Additionally, GameStop PowerUp Rewards members will get a costume of Jimmy Urine, lead singer of Mindless Self Indulgence, who also composed the boss music and acts in the game. Obscure punk rock tie-ins? Now you're getting closer to the reason for our interest.%Gallery-146261%
Oh my goth! It's Lollipop Chainsaw's villain, Swan
You can't just have zombies show up for no reason, obviously. In Lollipop Chainsaw, the malevolent force behind the zombie invasion is ... Swan, a "goth geek bastard" with a goofy laugh and much nicer clothes than any goths we knew.
Lollipop Chainsaw's 'total awesomeness' on display
When a video game trailer starts with a mohawked guy getting cut clean down the middle of his body, and surviving, you know it's a Suda 51 work. And from both of those facts, you can expect the rest of the trailer to be a weird experience, which this Lollipop Chainsaw clip certainly is. For example, in one scene, Juliet cuts a zombie's head off in the gym, causing the undead head to fly into the basketball hoop. That's the kind of thing WB is calling "total awesomeness" -- we think we'd want that kind of praise too if we'd managed to pull off a stunt like that.%Gallery-137867%
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.
Warner Bros. picks up Lollipop Chainsaw for Western release
Grasshopper Manufacture's cheerleader-versus-zombie action game, Lollipop Chainsaw, will be released outside of Japan in 2012, thanks to Warner Bros. Interactive. The publisher announced a new partnership with Lollipop's Japanese publisher, Kadokawa Games. That seems like a good match -- both companies are media conglomerates who have only recently expanded into games. Warner is using those media connections to bring in some Hollywood talent: writer/director James Gunn (Slither, Dawn of the Dead) will "bring his cult humor and edgy storytelling to Lollipop Chainsaw." Considering that the Suda 51 game already appears to be 100% cult humor ... that's a lot of cult humor. If WB is putting this much effort and cash into the writing, it seems possible that the company could go so far as to market the game, something that didn't fully happen with Grasshopper's last game. [Image: Famitsu]
