So. Bullet Witch.
I had almost written this game off due to the swarm of negative press it's received since being released, particularly IGN's cringe-inducing score of 4 out of 10. The review here on Insomnia was one of the only sites with a different opinion, which left me uncertain. Do I go with my gut and Insomnia's review or listen to the mob and ignore it?
Today comes along and my girlfriend and I are doing geek shopping. Books, DVDs, and thanks to an understanding girlfriend, video games. So we march into Game Trader, one of the very few independent game stores here in the Portland area. I've got $50 and a 20% off coupon in my pocket. I see a few things I've been meaning to check out, but nothing that I'm really dying to play. I finally gave in to my curiousity and plonked down the $27 for a used copy of Bullet Witch.
Honestly? I love it. It's not perfect by anyone's criteria, but how can anyone not have fun with this? So the shadows look a little off at times and the AI is inconsistent. Big deal. You're a hot girl with a huge gun and crazy fucking magic powers running around blowing shit up.
I'm actually a little peeved about the reviews I've read, if only because they're probably having a nasty impact on the game's sales. Cavia may not have made the next Gears of War in terms of how polished the game is, but they also don't have Microsoft throwing money at them to make their game. In a way, I kind of feel like this was a labor of love for them, since they usually take on properties like Ghost in the Shell: SAC or work-for-hire stuff like Drakengard.
The IGN review is the one that has me the most annoyed, as it's clear that the reviewer either didn't understand how to play the game or didn't actually play it. He refers to casting spells as "unwieldy and frustrating", but his description is only even semi-accurate for things like Lightning. He describes clipping issues and collision detection problems, but looking over the review, it sounds like he got to the bridge in the first level, kept dying due to the Walnut Head throwing cars at him, and just gave up in frustration.
I'm also convinced that a lot of people are so afraid of being labelled "typical guys" that they'll condemn any game that features a sexy lead female. Virtually the entire first paragraph of that IGN review remarks that "Leggy heroines have long been used to move shoddy games into the hands of unsuspecting teenage boys". I really have a hard time comprehending why a "leggy heroine" is a problem. Would anyone even want to watch an obese woman running around with a huge gun? Flip things around and imagine Kratos from God of War, except instead of a hulking brute of a man, he's a pasty-faced geek with a stupid emo haircut. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
I'll stop babbling, but I wanted to thank Alex for being one of the few dissenting opinions about this game. Maybe my tastes are just weird or they've gotten worse over the years, but it's unfortunate that only a handful of people are saying anything positive about it.