hack & slash game, entitled X-Blades.  It’s developed by Gaijin Entertainment & TopWare Interactive, and features a scantily clad main character, named Ayumi.  The basic premise of the game is a button masher with an attractive female protagonist.  I had been looking forward to this game for a long time, so I will share my impressions of the game with you.

 

It was a very easy game to pick up and just jumping in and having fun killing the monsters.  Your main weapons are 2 swords and your gun, and you can also learn and equip magic spells to certain buttons.  The Y button will trigger a special attack when you’ve built up enough energy to release it.  You can also roll away from enemies and jump into the air where your guns are most useful in my opinion.

 

When I started off playing, I was basically fighting bugs, flying monsters, and weird demon/dinosaur hybrid things. I immediately noticed the lack of a user controlled targeting system, and asked the developers/PR people on hand if there was one.  To my disappointment the guy said there was not and it was all on auto.  Most of the time this didn’t seem to hamper any of the gameplay, but there were quite a few instances where I was trying to fight one monster and would be targeted on another quite far away.  As I got the controls down, and it’s a very easy learning curve, I was hacking, slashing, shooting and using my magic on the monsters.  As I was playing that area of the level, I found myself enjoying the overall feel and gameplay of X-Blades.

 

Unfortunately, after finishing up that section of the level, I moved on to the big boss battle, and this is where things got extremely frustrating.  The boss was a large monster feeding on the enemies of the smaller monsters running around, so the objective is to continuously kill the monsters on the ground while attacking the larger monster with fire and or light magic.  Sounds simple enough, but it’s no where near being simple.  The guy instructing me on the boss battle wasn’t doing a very good job of explaining this part, and things just got down right frustrating.  I started killing off the smaller monsters and firing off magic at the larger boss as they were killed off, but somehow the boss was taking zero damage.  I noticed the smaller monsters kept coming back, and when one died, immediately another was in its place.  I asked the guy if they respawn and how to stop it from happening, but he just stood there telling me there is no respawn, just the boss creating more.  Maybe I’m an idiot, but that’s basically the same thing, so there was never an opening there long enough to damage the boss.  I tried for about 10 minutes before putting the controller off in frustration and utter anger at the guys running the booth.  Maybe it will be easier to decipher what is needed to be done for the boss battle when you’re home and have the time to really think out strategies in the game.

 

This game is currently scheduled to be released in early October, at around $59.99 according to Amazon.com.  After playing the demo at PAX, I hope they realize this is a budget title at best, and bring the price down to $39.99, because I wouldn’t recommend this title at any price higher than that.  It’s a mindless hack & slash shooter using sex to help sell the game, and I went into PAX with high hopes for this game, but instead left disappointed.  Don't get me wrong though, as this game has a lot of potention, if they delay the game a couple months and tweak some game mechanics. And who knows, maybe the demo doesn't do it justice, but it definitely didn't help the game any.