No More Heroes

No More Heroes did so many things right and yet got some major things wrong. Well not really, more like one major thing wrong. The game doesn’t need to be a open world sandbox game. It takes too long to move from point A to B just to drive back to where you were.   The game will really remind you of GTA San Andreas. Driving around and buying clothes between missions. And working out to improve your stats. However unlike the GTA series you can’t hurt pedestrians or take their vehicles. So you are stuck driving the same souped up motorcycle/moped. Annoyingly it is very easy to fall of your ride. Making you fall over in the same animation and then have to get up and press A to pick up your moped. In the end I found it best just not to slow down when I was reaching my destination and just ram into the wall. Because crashing doesn’t do damage and it seems faster than parking. Neither the less it’s funny to imagen the idea of Travis ramming his bike into the building, stumbling away from it and then casually walking into the building he just rammed into asking if he can get any part time jobs there. Another thing is the game doesn’t really give you a good tutorial on how to drive in the first place. It took me a good 15 mins to figure out how to get off of my bike. And on top of that I didn’t realize I could drift until I was half way through the game and finally decided to read the manual. Also I found out I could use turbo. So that would have been nice to know with all the stupid driving you have to do. However I found an easy way to pass this period of the game by making a playlist of my music on my MP3 player. Consisting of music similar to the games style. Artist like Gorillaz, Smash Mouth, Sum 41, The Hives, and Goldfinger seemed to work the best. As well as theme songs. Things like the Pokémon anime series seemed to fit the dorky yet you secretly think it’s cool attitude the game takes.

Now that I’m done writing about how bad that part of the game is let me talk about how amazing the rest of the game is. The game has an awesome dorky style. Having almost a punk/hipster style. The main character loves to wear dorky T-shirts with things like bad animes on them and lucha wresting logos. His name describes the style of the game completely. Travis Touch Down. The most dorky bad ass name ever. The game feels generally very punk. In fact it feels more punk then Tony Hawk Pro Skating.  It has a lot of abstract ideas in it that I don’t want to give away. But if you like the edgy and chaotic then you will feel very comfortable playing this game. The game is relatively weird though. But in an awesome way. Like a poorly translated Japanese movie. But I get the feeling this is done on purpose. You really need to go into this game knowing it’s going to be weird. Because it really doesn’t seem to take itself very seriously and so you shouldn’t. Everyone in the game you meet seems less sane then the last. Saying things like “Coconuts are more valuable than human life.” And “Make sure your ass is clean” The game keeps a good sense of humor through the entire game. That is very self aware and very sexual. I found myself laughing aloud throughout most of the game. Travis also shares the same love for cats as I do. Having a pet kitten in his apartment that always warms my heart to hear it meow in a young adorable way. The idea of Travis being a assassin and then part time he gets a odd job like garbage collecting and mowing lawns made me giggle. And didn’t seem to lose its restarted humor for a while. Sadly the voice acting is hit and miss through the entire game.  I can tell the person that did Travis is a good voice actor but he never seemed aware of how he was supposed to say something. Or even aware that most of the things he said were phrased in the same sentence. Most likely a result of poor localization team doing all the lines of Travis before they are aware of what he is even doing. But other than Travis most of the voice actors are very good. But most of the characters Travis meets only have a few lines before they are killed off.   The game has a love for 8 bit style. Your hud is in a classic nostalgic style for example. This also shows in the music. The music has a nice classic game sound to it at times and other times is very guitar heavy. Sadly although all of the music is well done there isn’t much of it. You will find yourself killing fodder enemy’s to the same track a lot.

The combat is very satisfying. I went into the game thinking it was going to make me swing the Wii Remote like a sword. But instead the game takes the right route realizing that the motion sensor sucks and makes you press the A button instead to attack. Based on if the remote is pointed up or down will change your type of attacks. Lastly when you have gotten the opponent’s health down to zero you can finish him with a prompted arrow telling you which way to slice him in half. The fights get hard at times and is very challenging but never gets too hard. However it is very frustrating when some of the bosses do an attack that kills you automatically if it connects. The game forces you to learn to read your enemy and learn his flaws in his attacks so you can counter attack. Making a very satisfying experience when you do get to connect your attacks. Also the game is just straight up gory in a ridiculous way. It’s the type of game where you feel achieved when the frame rate goes down because you are killing so many guys. Like you broke the game you are kicking so much ass. The combat can get very intense and I could feel my fingers really jabbing into the buttons with every attack. And at the end of each play through I felt carpel tunnel building in my fingers but always had a smirk across my lips.

In the end this game was a load of fun to play and just enjoy its awesome environment.  However there were a few things that bothered me like the free roaming aspect. But luckily this and other issues have been fixed in the sequel. Which B.T. Dubs I can’t wait to play.