|
No More Heroes Review
Have you ever thought to yourself, what would it take to become the world's number one assassin? No? Well that is ok, but there is now a game that shows what it might be like. That game is Suda 51's latest, No More Heroes. The company behind the much under appreciated Killer 7 for the GameCube brings you a game with enough stylish graphics and decapitating heads that it will be difficult to put it down.
The game follows Travis Touchdown, an anime and pro wrestling nut who has recently purchased his own lightsaber-like sword off an Internet auction. His goal is to become the number one assassin in his fair city of Santa Destroy. His motives for this include, of course, include wealth and fame, but he is mostly driven at first by a certain "reward" he can "acquire" if he becomes number one, but we will not go into that.
So gold comes out of people's heads?
The game basically uses a ranking system to determine who is number one, when the game starts off, Travis is ranked number eleven and he has to kill the tenth rank assassin to move into his spot. Along the way, Travis will have to do side jobs like mowing lawns and picking up trash to earn the money that he must pay to fight the next ranked opponent. Travis can also go to the video store to rent videos to learn new wrestling moves, go to the gym and work out, or visit his friend to upgrade his laser sworn, and much more. When you do decide to go fight the next ranked assassin, you will have to go through a level, like a baseball stadium for instance, killing all the assassin's thugs who, of course are trying to kill you.
The game is presented very well and the style is amazing to watch. It points the world of Santa Destroy as a dark and grim place, which it is with all the crazy assassins running around. Fans of Killer 7 will love it and it may take those that are used to Nintendo's traditional games a little while to get used to, but it is nevertheless great. The fight scenes are extremely graphic, but to possibly keep the game at a M rating, the game uses some cartoonish style in the killings as evidenced from the screen shot above. However, the style and graphics are amazing there are some problems with them. The main one is that for some reason you will driving along and suddenly crash into an invisible wall, which happens more times then it should. Also, when you are on missions, every thug you encounter is exactly alike, the only difference you will encounter is what weapons they are holding. The lighting in the game can also go a little crazy but besides those problems, the graphics and style are sure to blow you away.
The minute after you complete your first mission to become the tenth ranked assassin, the game takes a sudden turn. That is when you can begin to roam around Santa Destroy to complete jobs, buy things, etc. So essentially, No More Heroes has two separate game play systems; the missions where you try to improve your assassin rank, and the free roaming part to earn extra cash and buy new things. But before fans of Grand Theft Auto get too excited, the free roaming aspect is one of the weakest areas of the game. Santa Destroy is pretty big and there is a lot to see but there is, unfortunately, not much to do. You can only run or use your personal "motorcycle" to roam the city, so no stealing cars. There are few pedestrians out and you can run them over but they just get up and run and there is no way to talk to them. There are cops out but they do absolutely nothing, in fact you can run over a person right in front of them and they will just drive off.
He may be an assassin, but he still cares for the environment
Basically the free roaming is only for you to get to new jobs and buy or upgrade things. Also, random killing missions will pop up where you have to kill a certain number of people, or meet a certain criteria to win. These can be very annoying as they get much more difficult throughout the game (such as defeating every person without taking a hit) and if you lose you have to drive around for minutes until it shows up again. While the free roaming aspect of the game is a weakness, the mission game play truly makes up for it as it is a lot of fun.
For controls, it is not what you would expect for the Wii. You are not swinging and slashing your Wii Remote like in Zelda, instead you are pressing the A button to swing, this makes it much easier to pull off combos on opponents. However, depending on how high or low you hold the Remote, Travis will also hold his sword at that level. So if an attacker is defending himself by holding a weapon high, you want to have the Remote low so you can get an attack in. Also, you can grapple with opponents when you get close enough. This will trigger on screen directions on which direction to move the Remote and Nunchuk. If successful you will unleash a devastating wrestling move on your opponent.
Jeez alright you get to wear the costume today
The sound aspect of the game will remind you of the old days of arcade and early console games. This makes the music and sound almost the complete opposite of the style the game is portraying, but it actually works. When you defeat a boss and the screen pops showing the ranking list, it is like something you would have seen in Space Invaders or Pac-Man. The voice acting is somewhat campy but they pull it off very well. The speech is very crude and you are sure to hear Travis' explicit language when he kills someone.
The story is also not a strong point for No More Heroes, but you can expect that with a game that is so enrich with style and is a hack and slash game. Also, the moves and combos that you do unleash on opponents do get a little stale after a while, and although you can buy videos to learn new ones, they also get pretty boring quickly. However, the combat style is something that many people will fall in love with immediately. If you like crude humor (wait till you see how you have to save the game) then you will love this game as the Wii features no other like it for that. Overall, the game has many strengths and weaknesses, but the strengths heavily outweigh the weaknesses making it a fine title. Some may be put off by the game, but many will like and love it. But remember...it is rated M, and it is rated M for a good reason  .
Jules' Grade: B |
|
Linear Mode
