Let's start with some backstory, and I'll use the Instruction Manual to explain it.

"In the year 2000, the great powers began peace-keeping activities on a global scale under the banner of suppressing terrorism, completely shutting down all air transport and getting rid of every network terminal, all in the short span of two years.

In the year 2003, nuclear energy was banned, all radioactive material was disposed of, and all intercontinental missiles were eliminated, removing all threats to peace from the world. Then, there was a terrorist attack at the signing ceremony for the UN World Security Treaty. Terrorism in its truest sense - an act done to instill terror.

"So the great powers enlisted the help of the "Killer 7", the only ones capable of wiping out the new threat known as the Heaven Smile. "

You are the Killer 7. In other words you are Harman Smith. An old man in a wheelchair who has seven split personalities.

You can switch between any of the 7 personalities at any time. Well Garcian's the exception. If one of your personalities dies, then you can go to a nearby TV to play as Garcian, "The Cleaner". He can revive dead personalities, but die as Garcian and it's game over.

Each personality is their own very unique character, and all of which are really enjoyable for their own reasons. Dan smith is pretty much a well balanced character who can charge up his bullets. Kaede smith has a scope to allow you to zoom in and hit enemies, and her special ability is to slit her wrist, spraying blood into the air which destroys barriers.

Stay with me here...

Kevin Smith can turn invisible, and uses throwing knives to attack enemies. Coyote smith is a thief who can pick padlocks and jump up into high areas. Con Smith was born blind, so he has very sensitive hearing and can run extra fast. Finally Mask de Smith is an ex-wrestler with two mini grenade launchers. he can blow up walls and do wrestling moves on large objects.

Yes, it's pretty violent, but with a sweet style.
Plus, this is what happens when you kill them incorrectly.
Hitting their sweet spot causes them to explode into tiny
little beads of blood.
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Coming to a fork in the road gives you paths to choose from. It's a very neat idea and really speeds up gameplay.
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Confused yet? Good. Because that's the way this game is the whole time. They really just toss you into the middle of it all. I'll get to more of that later. Let's go over the play mechanics, which are rather interesting....

You hold a button to run forward. Your character is basically on "rails", so it automatically takes you around corners and up stairs. But whenever there's different directions you can go, your screen changes into what's shown on the left. By continually holding the run button, you can tilt the control stick in the direction desired. At first it feels a little out of place, but in reality it keeps the game pretty simple. You can't just be cheap and run by enemies, and you never have to run around into corners looking for clues. If there's a door, and there's no choice to go there, then you never have to worry about it. It's a very unique approach.

The Heaven Smile terrorists are invisible. So don't expect to see them. When you hear one of the do their infamous wicked laugh, hold down right trigger and you'll be put into a first person shooter view. In this stationary position, you just hammer away at the Heaven Smiles by pressing the left trigger to scan and instantly detect them. Each Heaven Smile has a weak spot that's shown with small glittering yellow dots, and if you can fire right into that spot before they jump on you, you cause them to burst apart into tiny little dots of blood that are then filtered into your container.

Your container contains two types of blood - thick and thin. Thin blood is used to heal yourself, and thick blood is used for increasing your characters skills. Throughout each level are multiple "Harmon's Rooms". Here you can access a Television, and Channel B is where you turn in your thick blood to increase a characters stats. Over the course of time, you'll allow your personalities more skills such as improved accuracy, special moves, and even instant kills by the end.

Turning on the TV lets you power up the character of your choice using blood you've collected.
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The Heaven Smile - the new terrorists.
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So now that I've explained a little bit about how the game works, let's go over some more interesting details. The graphics are incredible, and I don't mean incredible as in "high-resolution life-like graphics," I mean incredible as in "extremely stylistic cell-shaded graphics." The game looks like a mix between Viewtiful Joe, Kill Bill, and Sin City. (I never imagined I'd ever define a game like that)

And it's not just how the graphics look, it's how they're presented. The camera is usually in a "on the floor" view, cutscenes show characters in such a way that you can only see a half of their face on the side of the screen, and everytime you reload, the camera does a sweet view from in front of the character.

Every once in a while you'll come across an animated cutscene which are absolutely beautiful. Certain levels are done by certain artists, it seems like, so you get a small assortment of different Anime styles. The one on my right is from the level "CloudMan" and uses computer animation with similar shading styles as the game. It's really quite amazing to watch, and never gets old.

The bosses in the game are incredibly unique. Everytime the subject of one of the bosses are brought up, Matt is quickly to alert everyone about how he's never seen bosses even close to the ones like in this game. They're incredibly creative, unique, and puzzling at the same time. Want a good example? Well, how about this: You fight against two business men with half of their heads torn off. They shoot their brains at you, and you have to mess up one of their ties to force the other one to fix it for him. That's when the weak spot comes into view. That's barely scratching the surface of boss fights....

Along with the more traditional type of Anime, Killer 7 also rewards players with beautiful Anime. This scene of raining blood is one of my favorites.

This game is one incredibly solid package. The story line is so driven it forces you to keep playing it to find out what's going to happen, even though you have practically no idea what's going on at all. There's a great twist ending, and playing the game through again allows you to understand almost everything. Those other things aren't holes in the game, they're just things you never figured out. Matt and I found a FAQ online with at least 20 pages of explantions of what's going on in the game. It's absolutely crazy.

This game is incredibly puzzle oriented. It makes you pay really close attention to detail. Every person you talk to never tells you straight, it's always in some kind of code. I'll never forget the little ghost boy who told me how to defeat a boss: "There, you have to hit it. The weak spot. It's the big one. Or is it? I forget which one it is, but you have to shoot it. Just kidding." Before a boss fight, you always walk down a hallway with some stairs in it. Although you only walk down this hall for about 8 seconds or so, it plays the coolest techno song ever. It's so funny, because it's such an energized song for the most boring task: going up stairs and walking down a hall. Once you leave the hall, it stops playing.

This game did not get it's M for Mature sticker lightly. In fact, it was close to getting an AO for Adults Only. The game's style, presentation, story, and word usage makes it clear it was never made for kids. It's strictly for adults. That's especially nice, because I never feel like it's making fun of my intelligence. It really leaves puzzles for you to figure out. The story deals with all kind of subjects: let's see we've got a guy who lives with a group of orphan girls, we've got the harvesting of body organs, we've got assasins, we've got a hooker who only saves your game when she's dressed in a maid's uniform, we've got a girl's decapitated head that talks to you (which, at one point, you find in a dryer machine), some characters swear curse words at the Smiles when they hit their instant kill spot (which is surprisingly sweet as heck), you've got a bondaged man in red hanging from strings, the list goes on....

It's all in there. It's all worth it. This game has so much quality dripping from every inch of it, that it's impossible to put down. It's also selling incredibly poorly, which is making it sell for only $30 now. It's one of the most inventive, compelling, stylistic, and story-driven game I have played. This is one I'll never forget. Don't miss out on an incredible game. Buy it now.

Verdict: Highest Recommendation.