X-Blades (PS3)

[aruljothi]

Release Date: 02/10/2009
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Genre: Action
Publisher: SouthPeak
Developer: Gaijin Entertainment


I'm on kind of a weird sexploitation game kick this week, and second up is X-Blades. I started off with Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, and if that thing was the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold, X-Blades is a hot virgin with a heart of incomprehensible viciousness wired to a kiloton of dynamite that's strapped to the testicles of the very Earth itself. I don't know what the hell I ever did to this game to deserve what it has handed to me, and I don't care enough to ever find out. All I want to do is run as far the hell away as possible without questions, without emotion, and without looking back. Maybe years from now, I'll be able to confront what has happened with the help of friends, liquor, and a really good therapist. But right now I just want to shut myself in a closet where I can rock back and forth for a bit and pretend that it never happened.

Alright, I'm medicated and back for a minute or two.

You know what's pretty? Bloom, lens flare, HDR, cell shading, and a mighty shitload of visual effects slathered all over PS2-era graphics representing a bunch of enemies out to get a character I couldn't care less about. Pretend that you're in the shoes of say, Paris Hilton. Or whatsername from the first season of Lost -- Shannon, I think. And then imagine you'll have to suffer a million goddamn paper cuts to keep her safe. That's pretty much the premise of X-Blades.



Not only are you up against incredible odds, but also winning against them is like solving the riddle of the goddamn sphinx. Do I use my weak swords? No, that doesn't work. What about this fireball spell I just learned? No, that's bullshit. How about I wail away for a half an hour on infinitely respawning assholes, learn a few poorly described tricks until I get the one that actually works, then wail away some more out of sheer bloody mindedness until shit stops raining down on me? Oh, that was it? Really? That's really, seriously what you wanted of me? Let me play through that stage again just to be absolutely sure that I wasn't making some horrible mistake and you're not actually a beautiful, misunderstood cherry blossom of a game.

Seriously, I just spent an hour and a half figuring out that one crazy pill of a stage. I'm not playing a game so much as acting as an FBI profiler trying to get inside the head of a mass murderer whose brain is full of nothing but cancer and madness. In puzzling out this insanity, I can only be afraid that I've somehow been infected by it.

I can still hear the ba-thump ba-thump of the paused game behind me, begging me back for more abuse, and I'm caught in a spiral of disbelief. Nothing can be this awful, yet I find myself straining to look over my shoulder. I don't know how long I can hold out. I am lost, but you may yet save yourselves.

Save yourselves from this game.