The 2012 8-Bit Animal Holiday Buyer's Guide

This guide is fluid, and as such, new items may be added. Stay tuned for any changes that occur.

The weather is starting to get brisk, the leaves are starting to turn, and Wal Mart is advertising their Lay Away program. This only means that the Holidays are right around the corner, and to help you shop for the gamer on your Christmas list, We here at The Digitized Ramblings Of An 8-Bit Animal are going to give you our picks for the best stuff to pick up for the Holiday season.

In Case You Missed Them...

A few pretty good titles hit the market earlier in the year that may have been out of your price range or off your radar. These should be easy to pick up since they are older titles

Dragon's Dogma - Capcom: This one snuck up on a lot of gamers, but proved to be as awesome as advertised. A fantasy RPG with excellent combat, deep customization, and a gorgeous countryside to explore, Dragon's Dogma would be a great pickup for any RPG fan looking for something not called Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy.


Mass Effect 3 - Bioware/EA: The conclusion to one of gaming's great trilogies, Mass Effect 3 gave players everything they could have asked for (except for the ones who complained about the ending, but Bioware gave them that too). With the announcement of a compilation of all three ME titles, this one may be dropping in price soon.

Max Payne 3 - Rockstar: After nearly a decade, the third installment of the most depressing cop story in gaming history fell into the hands of gamers last May, and while it didn't reinvent the wheel, it was a solid third person shooter.

Lollipop Chainsaw - Warner Bros./Grasshopper Manufacture: The latest action title from the painfully awesome developer Grasshopper Manufacture was as controversial as it was fun, and with it dropping in price, this may be a great time to pick up a copy.

Transformers-Fall Of Cybertron - Activision/High Moon: The followup to the critically acclaimed War For Cybertron, This title continues with all the awesome provided in the first game and throws in some new stuff as well.

New For The Holidays!!

This next list is all about the stuff that has either just come out or will be out by the time the holidays are here

Borderlands 2 - 2KGames: Part RPG, Part FPS, Party  Online Party...Borderlands 2 takes everything that was fun about the first game and builds something that you honestly have to play to truly appreciate.

Assassin's Creed III - Ubisoft: This installment of the insanely popular stealth action game moves the player to the birth of the United States of America, and tasks them with helping the Minutemen push back the British army.

Call Of Duty-Black Ops 2 - Activision: The long running First Person Shooter franchise returns with it's latest installment and some major tweaks to the series' multiplayer, that long time COD players will either love or loathe, but should help to draw new players in.

Zone of the Enders HD Collection - Konami: Take Hideo Kojima's giant robot masterpiece and give the games all new cutscenes, a shiny HD redraw, and loads of bonus content and you may have a $40 gem in your hot little hands.

Halo 4 - Microsoft: One of the biggest titles to be released this year is a first party. It's also the latest in a series of games that changed the way we play First Person Shooters. After the highly publicized departure of Bungie from the Microsoft umbrella, all eyes are on Halo 4.

Disney's Epic Mickey 2-The Power Of Two - Disney Interactive/Junction Point: Arguably the best Disney game since the 90s was Epic Mickey, but a lot of folks missed how incredible it was because it was a Wii exclusive. This time, the sequel will show up on all consoles, including Nintendo's WiiU. It also features co-op play that may not require player 2 to be on another console to take advantage of.

NBA 2K13 - 2KGames: Every year, critics and gamers proclaim the latest iteration of NBA 2K "the best sports game ever made". According to reports from gamers who currently own the title, this years' game blows last years' out of the water.

Dishonored - Bethesda Softworks: Giving the player multiple options when it comes to the way they seek out their revenge is a good thing. The way Bethesda gave players those options in Dishonored makes it a must play.

In an effort to fairly recommend games to the consumer, no WiiU recommendations will be made until the console and launch titles are released to the public.

There you have it. I hope this list gives you some insight on a few titles I think will be worth your $50-$60 this Holiday Season.

Lollipop Chainsaw: Gaming Pariah, Champion Of Equality, Or Just A Game

-->

The climate in gaming right now is a precarious one. Gamers, much like so many other segments of society have become far more segregated, which brings about brutal instances of discrimination and a climate where many gamers feel left out of not just the player experience, but also in the lack of representation with regards to characters and the stories they tell. The lack of meaningful female protagonists in video games has led to every game featuring one being placed under quite the microscope. No recent game featuring a female lead has been under as much scrutiny as Lollipop Chainsaw. The game proved to be a lot of things to different people; to some, it’s just a game that happens to star a female character, to others it’s full of objectionable content that proves to be a bit much, while to others it’s something else entirely. I fall in the latter, with the game proving to use it’s seemingly crude content to speak to much larger issues within gaming.

Lollipop Chainsaw’s story focuses on a high school cheerleader named Juliet Starling, who happened to be celebrating her birthday on the day the events of the game take place (that’s actually an important plot point). On her way to school to meet up with her boyfriend, Nick, zombies attack the school and all hell breaks loose. What Nick doesn’t know is that his lovely seemingly harmless girlfriend is a member of a family of zombie hunters. Juliet calmly pulls a chainsaw from her purse and administers violent chainsaw death to the undead occupying San Romero High, but not before one of the zombies takes a faithful bite out of Nick’s arm. Faced with the choice of killing Nick and letting him become a zombie that she’d have to eventually kill anyway, Juliet makes a bold decision that actually puts the wheels of one of the most important story facets of this game into motion. All of the stuff I just mentioned happens in the prologue level, by the way.

If the story feels like a campy Hollywood horror movie, it’s because the game’s script was written by James Gunn, who was responsible for the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, Scooby Doo, and Slither among other films. Strangely enough the seemingly cheesy writing Gunn is known for seems to work well within the confines of a Grasshopper Manufacture game. Neither takes themselves seriously, and that helps breathe a lot of life into the zombie action game genre, which has been beaten to death over the years. The one thing that felt a bit overdone at first was the overuse of certain phrases being levied at Juliet during the course of the game, most notably in the first level. My concern seemed to wane however when the encounter with the first boss took place and you realize this was a big portion of the theme within the first level. You see, the first boss hurls vicious insults that actually take physical form that can damage Juliet. It’s literally the personification of the phrase “words can hurt”. For those who can see what’s actually happening there, it can prove quite the teachable moment.

Then there is the plight of Nick, who during the course of the game has moments where he’s treated like an accessory for Juliet during her mission. The rest of the Starling family actually does a lot to belittle him as well. It’s quite the interesting piece of reverse objectification that yet again will become quite apparent to those who get it. Sadly, for the commentary hidden with the game’s writing, many gamers that the message is supposed to impact will completely miss it; while some gamers will be instantly put off by the way the message is made and will decry it.

At its core though, Lollipop Chainsaw is an action game with typical modern hack and slash game problems. The core game play runs the risk of becoming repetitive on multiple occasions, the camera can prove to be problematic at several points, and there are a few moments where the extra weapons seem shoehorned in. One such moment was the Zombie Baseball segment of level 2. There are moments where the auto aim was absolutely frustrating, and there seemed to be points where Juliet’s Chainsaw blaster could not fire around Nick, which left him vulnerable to enemy attack. These minor gripes aside though, you’ll have an absolute ball cutting zombies in half, and the boss fight are a blast.

Lollipop Chainsaw won’t be for a lot of gamers, in fact, a lot of them will be down right offended. It does however succeed in one important facet, that being it turns the mirror on the player and forces them to confront their treatment of other gamers. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a very fun game, and if you get nothing else from Lollipop Chainsaw, you’ll get a good time.