BOO! Gotcha, bitches! To get in the spirit of the Halloween season, I decided to dedicate this Level Select to one of the scariest levels I’ve ever played, from a game many of you might not have heard of. But, before we get started, a word of caution: NEVER PLAY ILLBLEED.

Seriously. Never do it. Ever.

Imagine a game where you control the most annoying female protagonist since Jill Valentine in RE1, who controls 5 times as worse as her. Then place that girl in a haunted (I think) amusement park, where the gameplay involves playing I-Spy with supernatural shit that can kill you. The fighting system is the most unresponsive thing I’ve ever played. And the voice acting/animation look like it was made by a 5-year-old. Really, this game isn’t worth the disc it’s printed on.

With that said, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this game, because of the stories involved in the game, the copious amounts of blood sprayed from your main character (seriously, it could fill all the Great Lakes), and the pure, batshit-insanity of some of the things you come across in the game. Luckily, you folks can enjoy all the unbridled weirdness the game offers without having to sit through gameplay as bad as Superman 64: you can just watch amazing YouTube clips. For instance: The Cake From Hell. That’s all I gotta say. Now, onto this week’s Level-Headed, where I look at the first level of Illbleed, entitled…


ooooooooooWWWWEEEEEEEEEEooooooooooooo

So, the story of Illbleed sucks. Apparently, there’s an amusement park killing people, or some shit. If you wanna know the story, check Wikipedia. Eriko, the annoying main character, arrives at the amusement park, and makes her way to the first part of the park (each part is sectioned off into little horror movies) called The Homerun of Death. Here’s the back story of HoD:



Yeah, it’s actually a cool little story. Each level has a horror-movie-style theme to it. Apparently, your main character is a horror-movie-aficionado, and this amusement park is right up her alley. Anyway, much like Storm Eagle’s level, I love this first level because it embodies the best aspects of Illbleed:

1. Cheap jump-out scares: The main gameplay of Illbleed involves Eriko using her senses to detect scary happenings before they happen and either stop them from happening, or reduce their scariness. But, if you fail to detect a scary event, you are treated to the oddest scenes you’ll ever see in a survival horror game.


This attacks you if you attempt to wash your hands. Seriously.

Just in the first level, you run into TVs that shoot electricity at you, giant hands coming out of the wall, lightbulbs that shoot glass at you, and, hand to God, a carnivorous turkey. And I don’t mean, like, an animal turkey. I mean a food dish. A cooked turkey with a giant fanged mouth actually jumps out at one point to attack you. And that’s not even close to being the most disturbing thing you see in the game. Again, Cake From Hell. Jesus.

2. Plain creepiness: As you make your way through the level, and learn more about the story of Jimmy and Gale Banballow, you come across some really creepy artifacts from their lives. For instance, the first weapon you pick up is Jimmy’s old baseball bat. Which grows a face. And starts talking to you. About baseball practice.


Jimmy! Jimmy! It's time for practice!

Then, later in the level, you make your way to the basement of the hotel, and find a mini-baseball stadium, complete with walls of trophies for Jimmy. After you place some trophies back in their respective slots, you actually step up to the plate in the stadium, with Jimmy’s bat, and hit a random floating baseball that’s just hurled at you from nowhere, with Gale murmuring something in the background. As you make a triumphant home-run, you come in contact with the greatest aspect of this level, Gale Banballow himself.

3. Bosses from your worst nightmares:

Everyone, say hello to Gale Banballow. This is the main boss of HoD, and one creepy motherfucker. He’s a monstrosity that hobbles around on 2 disfigured legs, wielding a fucking flamethrower, all while you beat the shit out of him with his own son’s baseball bat. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. After you defeat him in the baseball stadium, you come to a maze-like area of the basement, where you must escape from, while being chased by Gale. And, at any time, he can appear anywhere in the maze. Playing this as a kid, the maze and Gale together were the scariest things I’d ever seen. At the end of the maze is a boiler room, where you once again fight Gale, and kill him.

Or so you think.

As you make your way back upstairs from the fight, the room you enter has the back wall ripped out, and you come face-to-face with a 3-story tall Gale, who’s even more terrifying than before. The ending of this level sucks, so I won’t bother you with it. But, the boss battles with Gale are sure memorable enough.

Like I said, never, ever, EVER play this game. This is the one Dreamcast game that, above all else, should be relegated to a dump out in the desert. Thankfully, there are ways of experiencing the best parts of the game without paying through it. And, boy, there are some awesome parts, to be sure. This ends another episode of Level-Headed. Thanks for coming, and have a happy Halloween, everyone!

LEVEL SELECT:
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Waluigi's Island (Mario Party 3)
Report 5: Evil In The Galaxy Revealed! (Space Channel 5)
Fort Frolic (Bioshock)
Airport 1001 (Mega Man X)
Crescent Isle (Skies of Arcadia)
Chainsaw Hedgemaze Mayhem (Zombies Ate My neighbors)
Temple Of Ice (LoZ: Phantom Hourglass)