The O/C Gamer

I like to be challenged in the art department. I like my art to be confrontational, emotive, engaging in the headspace. I love my obscurities, my non-mainstream, my fringe. I listen to free jazz, mexican death metal, j-punk, and all the genres in between; Lynch and Cronenberg and Jarman and Kaurismäki and Jeunet are all welcome visitors in my home.

But Killer7 is absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent, completely batshit insane.

It's also utterly brilliant.

And it's also an incredibly polarising game - more marmite than Space Giraffe, as incredulous as that may seem. Killer7 offers the gamer every opportunity to hate it: from the harsh and occasionally garish cel-shaded graphics, to the minimally-interactive on-rails action, to the deliberately obtuse plot. Having to stop movement, take an attacking stance, scan for the enemy you know is there, then wibble your gunsight around the screen to attack the source of the mocking laughter in your ears. Lift off A, hold R, hit L, move stick, whack A, twiddle C. Not exactly the most overt control scheme.

And yet, it carries its head high. Killer7 is a distilled production, the essence of style. Suda51's brainchild is clearly of greater value than the sum of its parts - the caustic gameplay, glorious anime cutscenes, and eerie aurals meld into a cohesive package that rivals Rez in terms of its completeness.

Yes, the game is pretty short - 15 hours for my first play-through. Yes, the puzzles are pretty basic in nature (necessarily so, given their somewhat eccentric solutions). The inbuilt hint system is a laugh - the idea of having a helpful hint-provider turning into an abusive bastard (with double-deuce action) merely by shooting his lucha libre mask is... well, different. Then again, humour is everywhere - one of the first blood-splatters you see on the wall says "How Soon Is Now"... the Killer7 are all Smiths, geddit? The different psyches of the Killer7 are also a hoot - it's pretty hard to go past Dan "The Hellion" Smith, though each of the Smiths manages to maintain their own love/hate relationship with the player. Boss battles are... odd, ranging from simple to WTF. Killer7 versus the Handsome Men is one of those giggle-fests that makes you reconsider the evilness that usually accompanies boss battles.

But, in the end, it's the plot which carries Killer7 (avoid the Wikipedia article, it's a spoiler-filled funbuster). I came into the game with the understanding that I was controlling seven psyches, but the reality-bending that subsequently occurs almost defies belief. In the end, all the threads presented are kinda pulled together, and I'm pretty sure I figured out what was going on... but in the world of Killer7, it's hard to be absolutely sure.

I will say this, though: the final level of the game (as opposed to the post-credits snippet which is the icing on the cake) is one of the best end-of-game levels I've ever played. No, scratch that - this easily usurps the Halo run home. It's a couple of minutes of the most glorious brainfuckery that I've ever experienced. And it's ironic that, within a rail-based game, the level with the least interaction is the pièce de résistance; but that's the parting shot of Killer7, the last stand of one of the most confrontational interactions I've engaged in.

I like to be challenged by my art, and Killer7 delivers in spades.

Posted by pete at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's pretty difficult to find any PAL P.N.03 information out there, so I thought I'd also share a save file [6 KB] (saved using the EMS Gamecube save card) and a few tips on Papillon suit acquisition.

Here's the 5 slots in the file:

1. Start of Mission 11, Easy, all suits except Blackbird and Papillon unlocked. Complete this mission to see ending #1, and the Blackbird unlock screen.


2. Start of Mission 11, Normal, all suits except Papillon unlocked. Complete this mission (without changing out of the Blackbird suit) to see ending #2, and the Papillon unlock screen.


3. Start of Mission 11, Easy, all suits unlocked, wearing Papillon. Complete this mission to see ending #3.


4. Cleared data, Blackbird. Load this slot to view the Blackbird start screen.


5. Cleared data, Papillon. Load this slot to view the Papillon start screen.

FWIW (considering the vast amounts of dubious P.N.03 information out there - especially regarding the PAL version), here's how I did it:

• Slot 1: played through on Easy, completed all the Trial Missions, and repeated Trial Mission 7.5 (ie, Trial Mission 5 preceding Mission 8 ) until I had sufficient points to buy all the suits. When this game was complete, I saved the Cleared data into Slot 4.


• New game. Loaded Slot 4, then played through on Easy again, racking up the points and upgrading all the suits to maximum. Saved the "Cleared" data to Slot 4 again.


• New game. Loaded Slot 4, then raced through on Easy mode again (not worried about the Trial Missions), saving into Slot 2. The purpose here was to generate a "Cleared" Slot in Slot 2. When loaded, the Slot 2 Cleared data still results in the Blackbird title screen.


• New game. Loaded Slot 2, played through on Normal, saving to Slot 2. Changed suits to the Blackbird at the earliest opportunity, before shooting anything. Completed all the Trial Missions, getting Professional on all of them (resetted without saving if I missed Professional). I definitely did not get Professional ranking on all the "real" Missions. Completed the game, awarded Papillon, saved the Cleared data into Slot 5.


• New game. Loaded Slot 5, played through on Easy with the Blackbird, racking up sufficient points to upgrade the Papillon to maximum (this generally doesn't require any Trial Missions). Saved the Cleared data to Slot 5 again.


• New game. Loaded Slot 5, played through on Easy, saving to Slot 3. Changed suits to the Papillon at the earliest opportunity, before shooting anything.
  Playing with the Papillon on Easy still gives you a slight buffer (getting hit twice kills you, as opposed to Normal mode's once (!) ).

I've also collected a few lovely P.N.03 movies for you:

• The first of the game's attract movies (and attractive they are). [6,618 KB]


• The second of the game's attract movies. [5,358 KB]


• A Japanese TV commercial with some great composition. [5,162 KB]

Posted by pete at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This entry was published - with permission, of course - in Issue 78 of the utterly joyous Way of the Rodent. Hurrah!

Back in 2003, Capcom resuscitated the hopes of GameCube owners when they came up with the Capcom Five - a series of Cube exclusives. Sadly, one of the five were dropped, and three others were ported to the PS2; P.N.03, however, remained a rough diamond that all Gamecube owners should cherish.

Sonically, it's a bit meh. There's nothing to inspire, nothing that infuriates; inoffensive beats that may accidentally make you tap your foot every so often, moody pieces that cajole the tone rather than set it. Gameplay-wise, it's an odd blend of move-then-shoot, spiced up with largely ineffective mashing of the D-pad in an attempt to conjure up the use of an Energy Drive. So let's now consider the visual aesthetics of P.N.03, and we'll cut straight to the heart of the matter; the game is built around the model of the protagonist, Vanessa Z Schneider. Few games have characters modeled as strikingly, as gorgeously, as pneumatically, as P.N.03. Which is just as well, because the rest of the graphics are average, at best. In the variety department, this game is shamed by Halo. Or even just The Library in Halo. Yes, it's that dull.

But, as mentioned before, this game is focused on Vanessa. VANESSA! The first time you get an Autofire power-up, you'll hold down the A-button and sit back in wonder as Vanessa seductively moves her hips whilst dealing out death. And it's utterly mesmerising. I've spent hours just watching her arse move. In fact, P.N.03 is known as "Wigglies" in my abode, such is the splendour of her buttock convolutions.

As for the gameplay… well, P.N.03 is a bit short. It's easy to blast through the 11 levels on offer pretty quickly. But then you notice the Store, where you can purchase different skins for Vanessa's Aegis Suit… or rather, Vanessa's Arse. The game then becomes a matter of viewing that posterior in all possible suits in all possible surroundings; discovering that certain suits, in certain lighting conditions, are nothing short of pornographic. Wankworthy, at least.

Of course, to acquire these suits you need to score points. To score points, you need to play the game. A lot. In playing the game, you have to watch Vanessa gracefully leap, run, and cartwheel about between shooting, occasionally striking a vogue-esque pose when you manage to fire off an Energy Drive. And she wiggles her arse, too.

Did I mention that Vanessa's got a gorgeous arse?

Finally, you discover the existence of the final Aegis Suit for Vanessa's wardrobe - the Papillon suit. Maybe you read about it on the Internet, maybe you noticed its 0.7 second appearance in the end-game movie. No matter - you now know that the Papillon suit is, essentially, a fetching pairing of a boob-tube and a G-string. There may be something covering Vanessa's legs too but, let's face it, if the arse is exposed you're not going to notice.

YES! Those glorious fleshy orbs will be freed! And a rather tasty butterfly tattoo exposed, too.

And so the quest for the Papillon suit begins. More running, gunning, posing, gyrating. It's the best kind of gaming grind imaginable, like receiving fellatio whilst leveling-up in Sword of Fargoal. Eventually, though, you are awarded the suit - basking in the post-orgasmic glow of the achievement, you see the sex-on-a-stick Papillon title screen for the first time.

You wait for your heart rate to drop to something approximating normal, and you start playing with the Papillon suit. You leap, you bound, you pirouette, you drool. The suit, by its absence, is lush. Sure, you've got no actual protection from being shot, but the visual feast on offer makes it more than worthwhile.

And then, you think to yourself… "I wonder if there's anything tasty if I beat the game wearing the Papillon suit."

And here's where the purity of P.N.03 is revealed, for the Papillon Quest boils down to a simple matter of not being shot. And you can't get more hard-core, more shoot-em-up, more pure, than that.

Play. Wiggle. Don't get shot. Wiggle. Strike a pose. Wiggle. Don't get shot.

It's what video game dreams are made of.

Wiggle.

Posted by pete at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)