Kick-Ass Preview

How much ass would an ass kicker kick if an ass kicker could kick ass?

My old roomie had a great way of summing up the work of Wanted and Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar. He described it as being the kind of stuff that a thirteen-year old boy would write if they were in charge of putting together a comic book. Hyper-violent, over-sexualized, and full of more swear words than a South Park episode directed by Quentin Tarantino. I feel this is a bit more apt when referring to Wanted; I couldn't find anything redeeming about it beyond its parody of some of my favorite super-villains.

But Kick-Ass seems to be the opposite side of the same coin - brutally portraying the trials and tribulations of a high-school student-turned costumed vigilante with the same name as the book. Instead of being a book that seems to have been written by a teenage boy like Wanted, it seems more like it was written about every teenage boy's fantasy... of Kicking Ass. Of course, you don't just wake up one day and decide that you're going to be a hero. It takes training and a lot of, well, getting your ass kicked. And that's where the upcoming game based off a movie based off a comic book comes in.

In the upcoming action-RPG adventure for the PSN and iPhone, you'll take on the role of one of three main characters from the film: Kick Ass, Hit Girl, or Big Daddy. Each has their own unique skills and weaknesses. KA can only perform melee attacks with his batons, HG has the agility to shoot men right between the eyes as she runs up walls, and BD is kind of between the two, bashing people to death with his shotgun or just shooting their heads off. Along with their personal skills, they will all be able to use the environment to their advantage as well. Impaling members of Frank D'Amico's mob on forklifts and the classic exploding barrel are just a few options for disembowelment.

Missions will range from killing mob bosses to finding lost teddy bears, in the most gory ways possible. Gameplay is classic RPG beat-'em-up that will remind many of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, except with much more blood and no super-powers. That could have something to do with the fact that some of the developers behind it were involved in making X-Men: Legends. If you've ever just looked inside an issue of the comic, or watched the Hit Girl trailer, you'll know just how brutal some of the action can get. You and one friend will also be able to team up to clean up the streets in local co-op as well as in an arena mode included in the game, in which you take on endless waves of enemies, much in the same fashion as Gears of War 2's Horde mode.

New moves will be unlocked as you level up along with stat points to be distributed among health, mana, and abilities. They've set the initial level cap at 50, but that could always change later down the line. Completing secondary objectives and finding hidden objects will unlock extras, and if you can find all the comics left throughout the game, you'll unlock a digitized issue number one of the book that started it all.

You'll be able to download Kick-Ass to your PS3 or iPhone on April 15th, conveniently one day before the movie gets released. What an odd coincidence. It's almost as if they planned it. There's even DLC planned for six weeks after release that will add online multiplayer and a new mystery mission. In the meanwhile, you can always re-read your copy of the hardcover trade.