For the last half an hour my brother has been calling me a cop out for reviewing this because, like the Bully: Scholarship Edition review, I haven’t played through the full game. So yeah, I hold my hands up and admit I have questionable integrity, but I have my reasons for reviewing this game without finishing it. Read this as a ‘hands on’ or a ‘first impressions’, if you’re fussy.
No More Heroes (NMH) has you play as Travis Touchdown, a man with a Beam Katana (*cough* lightsaber *cough*) who’s ambition is to become the number one assassin in the town of Santa Destroy: and I’m still trying to figure out what the developers were smoking when they thought up of that idea. During the story you will fight the top 10 assassins in Santa Destroy, eventually becoming the number one. Its not the most original formula, but it works quite well in this game.
The core element of the NMH gameplay is the combat, and it’s very good at first. You can either hack at enemies with your “Beam Katana” (aa…aa…aalightsaber. Sorry, I sneezed) to kill them, or use a variety of throws. Whichever way you choose to fight, you’ll find that the Wii’s motion sensitivity is used very well; either for styling finishing moves or for breaking up sword locks. It’s a lot of fun when you start, but soon you realise that almost every enemy you fight is fought in exactly the same way, and once you do it takes the fun out of fighting drones. However, the boss fights make up for this. They have their own personalities, look, and fighting style, and it was a big test for me to fight them: but for me it wasn’t worth fighting through hordes of drones just for the chance of a ten minute boss fight.
Fighting isn’t the only element of NMH, though. There are various other minigames for you to play through, and the ones I played were fun and varied, ranging from collecting coconuts to mowing lawns, and you’ll definitely enjoy them the first few times you play them. The character customisation is basic, but a good feature to have; there are hundreds of items of clothing for you to choose from. There is also the driving aspect of NMH, which is quite good. The problem with the driving is that you can’t do much with it; there are no race minigames, stunts, or Grand Theft Auto style chases to do, its just a way of getting around quickly. The main reason I find this disapointing is because the bike you’re given is a lot of fun to drive, and they could have done so much more with it than they did - to be honest, that sums up my opinion of the gameplay entirely: I was just expecting more.
Graphically this game is pretty decent; the shadows really stood out for me, because in places they are perfect; for example, when I was walking under palm trees. Other aspects of the graphics are pretty averages, particularly the draw distance, which will have different parts of buildings popping up as you drive past. What I did like was the art style; I haven’t seen anything like it before, and the only comparison I can really make for it is the game ‘XIII’, because both games have gone for quite a cartoony look. It’s refreshing, in an industry where 99% of developers are going for the photo-realistic look. The explosion of black powder when you kill and enemy is very satisfying.
The sound of NMH is not necessarily bad; there are limited songs in the sound track , and it’s quite repetitive, but the songs that are there are varied and work well with whatever you’re doing. What actually baffled me was the voice acting; I jsut don’t know what to make of it at all. During the storyline cutscenes its very well voice acted (considering the script they have to work with), but when you walk into a shop or start a side mission the non-playable-characters talk in about three different languages. I can’t tell if the game is doing it on purpose or if it was just rushed though and they mixed up the sound.
What I liked about about No More Heroes is how deliberatly corny it was. Everything about the game is trying to hard to be badass, funny, or grotesque; and NMH knows this. It’s difficult to nitpick about the clunky dialogue or poorly delivered one liners when it’s intentional. This game doesn’t take itself seriously, like so many other games do at the moment, and it’s very refreshing.
Story: 7/10 - I didn’t play through the entire game, for all I know there could be incredible plot twists and it could deal with a lot of issues: but what I did play through was so unbelivably shallow I don’t think the game writers are capable of anything above average.
Gamplay: 8/10 - One of the best combat systems on the Wii, shame it’s so repetitive.
Graphics: 7/10 - It looks good, for a Wii game. The art style really earns it points.
Sound: 7/10 - Most of the bad things it does, is on purpose. It’s still atmospheric, and at times quite funny.
Design: 7/10 - Everything feels so empty when you’re walking or driving around, and some things don’t act the way you’d expect. The control system is good, though.
Overall: 7.2/10 - It could have been a great game, and it had so much potential. Maybe it’s because I expected much more of it that I feel let down, but it just isn’t as good as other games I’ve played. If you only own a Wii then I recommend it, because you’re not going to get another game in this genre for a long time; but if you have a 360 or PS3 as well as a Wii, I don’t recommend it: Bully: Scholarship Edition is already available and Grand Theft Auto 4 is on the way.
Next review: Rainbow 6 Vegas 2
Images: Google image search.