Game #8 – Bayonetta

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Platnium Games

Platforms: PS3/360

Ex-Capcom employees always have a habit of going on to make a direct competitor to a series they were involved heavily with, and usually succeed in making a kick ass game. Sure, it took SNK a little while for this to happen, but they finally hit it with the King of Fighters games. As for Platnium Games? Well, after being founded in 2006, their first big hit came through at the start of 2010 with Bayonetta.

I couldn't honestly tell you about the story to Bayonetta. It involves a witch (the titular Bayonetta) fighting against angels...and that's all I know. Oh, and she's got a great arse, and likes to flaunt what she's got. I usually end up skipping the cutscenes because the story is kind of a mess, and that I want to get to the gameplay as quickly as possible, which is easily the highlight of the game.

The actual combat to Bayonetta is nothing short of insane. At its base, you can easily get by defeating enemies by button mashing and dodging, as you would in God of War. But once you get further in the game, it becomes vital you understand how the combat system works – particularly the “Witch Time” mechanic, wherein dodging at the last possible moment slows down the action momentarily, allowing you to further your combos and making the battles look even more crazier. It's not uncommon to pause after a battle to just think to yourself “Holy shit, did I just do that!?”

Add in some truly memorable shout outs to a bunch of other games, and you have yourself one of the best experiences of the year, especially if you're after a fantastic character action game, particularly if you can ignore the story. Not that it's bad, but you really want to get back to the game as much as possible – something that's never really been the case for me.