Game: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
Ranking: 31/100
Score: 84.26%
Have you ever wanted to play a hyper-gory ‘Carry On’ film?
Then this is the game for you! Gratuitous sex and violence abound in this mix
of beat ‘em up action and arcade mini-games, but does the shock factor enhance
a good game, or disguise a bad one?
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| Travis Touchdown: Part dork, part badass; all bell-end. (Source: IGN.com) |
Intro
The manual has a consistent comic-book theme, which seems to
fit the main character; the opening and closing comic-book panels which
describe the plot are rather fun. There's good use of white space and diagrams
to describe the controls. There's also some truly awful character name puns -
Sylvia Christel is most definitely not a deliberate misspelling of the actress
who played the titular character in the 'Emannuel' films, for example. The
opening credit sequence really does nail down the content and target audience
of this game - grainy comic-book style panels of violence and gore, plus some
toilet humour from your main character makes this seem squarely aimed at
adolescent males. The animated sequences are visually interesting - you have
shots taken from reflections in puddles, for example. The attempt to give the
whole world a unique feel by making things like naming the difficulty settings
with colloquialisms is a nice touch, too. Oh, and the narrator is Colonel Roy
Campbell from the 'Metal Gear Solid' series.
I'm assuming this is a direct translation from the Japanese,
as some of the sentences in the manual are just abysmally written. The fact
that this game has such an obvious target audience is not necessarily a good
thing - when main character Travis announces your save game file creation by
waltzing into the toilet and proudly stating, 'Before all that struggling, you
might want to drop a nice save', I know that despite being rated PEGI 16+ this
game is aimed squarely at fourteen year old boys. The cutscene dialogue and
character exchanges you get to witness before the gameplay starts are truly
asinine, and not in a self-aware way. I laughed out loud at several pieces of
choice dialogue, but I know I was not laughing in the way the game wanted me to
be - I was laughing at it, not with it. Word to the wise, "When you
see your bro in hell, tell him... HE'S STILL A DOUCHE!" is not a
witty, withering put-down. Although not particularly important, I found the
names chosen for each difficulty rating a little odd. 'Sweet' is easy, 'Mild'
is hard. I would honestly have expected this to be the other way around - but
at least the game gives you a description for each option to help you out.
It really wouldn't have hurt to get someone who had a decent
grasp of the English language to read the translation and rewrite the manual so
it actually made sense. This game needs to be poking a lot more fun at itself
than it is in the opening sequences; the introduction and story are so
painfully dumb, and it seems to have no sense of irony whatsoever when it comes
to the characters’ awful one-liners. I can see how a very specific demographic
might think this is the coolest thing ever, but they could interest other
gameplayers (who aren't fourteen and male) by slipping in a few clever
self-deprecating bits of dialogue. The main character is a problem for me -
he's thoroughly unlikable before you even get a chance to play as him. Now,
protagonists don't have to be nice. They can be good, virtuous, kind, friendly
or evil, cruel, vicious, or dumb. Whichever sort of character you want to
create, they still need to be likable on some level; that blood-thirsty
protagonist who keeps trophies of his conquests still needs to have something
that the player can identify with. Travis seems ripe for mockery, so why not go
for it and give him a bit of self-awareness? This would make him remotely
likable and sympathetic.
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| Travis' subtlety meant the coroners spent weeks agonising over the cause of death for this henchman. (Source: IGN.com) |
Getting Going
You start the game pretty quickly with a roof-top tutorial
where the stakes have already been set; you're fighting someone who has vowed
revenge on your character for killing his brother in the very same spot. That's
pretty crucial for a tutorial and makes it feel a little more meaningful. You
get a number of short cutscenes which set the scene of the game and make it
clear that the game's tongue is firmly embedded in its cheek; there is a lot of
fourth wall smashing where the characters point out that some people might be
playing this game without playing the original so there's little point in
hashing over the existing storyline. Oh, and your character gets an anime-style
nosebleed at Sylvia's flirtatious persuasion. There is literally nothing to be
taken seriously in this game at any point.
The tutorial is actually a little irritating - the gameplay
is automatically paused to give you some information on the moves you can do,
but the messages are unrelated to what you're trying to do. For example, I was
interrupted with a message about resetting the camera when I was in the middle
of trying to combo attack my opponent. The fight is interrupted at some point
with a cutscene where an unknown woman (who is probably Sylvia) appears to be
providing exposition via a phone sex line. When I was returned to the action,
it really wasn't clear if I had been killed and had to restart, or whether I
had moved into a different phase of the fight. Alas, the cutscenes are also
still charmless and fail to be funny.
I'd have liked the tutorial to be more interactive; if the
game displayed messages related to what I was trying to do, it would be a lot
more helpful. Perhaps if the tutorial involved attacking some kind of robot
training dummy? That way the game could force you to practise the various
moves, then have your training interrupted by the actual opponent, and then let
you fight him. I'd also want to see any cutscenes interrupting the fight
sequences to be directly related in terms of location and information - when a
cutscene appears that has neither of these connecting properties, it's jarring
and confusing. The cutscenes where Sylvia flirts with your character Travis I
would assume are supposed to show how she's pulling the strings, given that
she's directly responsible for allowing you to advance through the game. The
problem is, the actions and dialogue don't give the necessary subtext to pull
this off, and it comes across as a juvenile masturbatory fantasy where Travis
is promised sex in return for fighting. If Sylvia was clearly written so that
she viewed Travis with distain despite her coquettish behaviour, the entire
sequence where you are introduced to her as your agent would have had much more
impact.
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| This chappie is your first fight opponent; he's also the most restrained in terms of design. (Source: IGN.com) |
Fun
The gameplay reminded me a lot of a 3D version of 'Streets
of Rage', where your character basically fights his way through a number of
baddie henchmen before reaching the assassin he needs to usurp. You can
purchase different weapons with which to fight, and there are a number of
special final blow style moves that you can unlock depending on how much damage
you have wielded and how little health you have lost - this will eventually
fill up your ecstasy meter, which grants you additional abilities, such as
super speed, greater strength, or turning you into a tiger (no, really). These
use quick time events where you have to waggle the Wii Remote in specific ways,
and are fun in an ultimate carnage sort of way. There is a vague element of
tactics implemented into the game, as you only have a finite amount of charge
on your beam katana; when this runs out, you have to find somewhere to recharge
without being attacked. How do you recharge? Your character hunches over and
grunts while you shake the Wii Remote up and down. All those jokes you older Wii players have
made about how some moves in certain Wii games end up looking a little like
indulging in some gentleman's time? This game goes beyond hinting and turns it
into a single-entendre.
Although the game finds ways to make the battles varied from
an aesthetic point of view, you really are just hacking and slashing at
opponents until they die. Combo attacks just involve repeatedly swinging the
Wii remote and mashing the A or B button, and the powers you get when
activating your ecstasy meter are arbitrarily selected - the player does not
get to choose.
I'd have preferred to have some control over the
hyper-powers I could use when my ecstasy meter is filled; to avoid the risk of
people spamming the uber-powerful tiger transformation, you could only allow
each power to be used once per stage. That way there is an additional tactical
element of sorts to the fights.
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| This guy is meant to be Jamaican, I think. So why does he speak with what sounds like an Irish accent? This game poses the questions, but only you can find the answers. (Source: gamespy.com) |
Visuals
The use of the comic-book panels and over the top character
designs do give this game a very strong stylised feel, as do the exaggerated
shadows on each character. As the game opts for comic-esque style as opposed to
a realistic look and feel, the game generally just about gets away with its gratuitous
gore and hyper-sexualised women. The mixture of well-drawn animation coupled
with the 8-bit sprite designs of the HUD and stage cleared screens provide an
interesting contrast. There are numerous sub-games where you can earn money;
these are all done in that retro 8-bit style, and that vastly different
graphical look adds to the humorous feel of the game.
Some of the character designs are just excruciating. Sylvia
Christal is meant to be your typical sexy femme fatale, and they convey this by
having her wander around in a teeny trench coat that shows off her bra and hot
pants that are so small they might as well just be knickers. The first person
camera trails over her tits and ass at every opportunity, suggesting particular
excitement at the sight of her thong poking out above her shorts. That isn't
sexy; that's a pubescent boy's approximation of what sexy is - and the worst
thing is that it doesn't feel remotely ironic. This would be fine if it was a
defining part of Sylvia's character (and I'm fairly certain it's supposed to
be), but every other female character I've encountered thus far is reduced to
T&A, which nullifies the effect. The
male characters aren't really drawn in a similar exploitation style, either;
the only male that is reduced to full-on stereotype is the camp gym instructor.
Also, the fact that the actual worlds you move around in - from the university
to the crummy motels - have a rather realistic feel rings false for me in a
game that's so over the top.
Obviously having a subtly sexy Sylvia would be completely incongruous
with the rest of the game's over the top feel, but I think the game should have
gone the whole hog with the visuals and made the main game design really
cartoony. This would have made some of the characters exploitation-style
appearance feel less like a childish attempt at titillation, as well as helped
cement the game's tongue-in-cheek feel.
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| See that tiny, flaccid thing in the top right hand corner? That's your weapon gauge. If you vigorously pump the Wii Remote, it will grow larger, more turgid and look happier. They might as well have got me to pop the Wii Remote in my mouth for all the gentle euphemism of this gag. (Source: gamespy.com) |
Intelligence
The enemy characters don't just stand around and wait for
you to find them; they will actively seek you out and pursue you, while yelling
taunts so you have an idea you have been spotted. Some henchmen are a lot
stronger than others, and some wield quite alarming weapons such as chainsaws
that can deal a fair amount of damage and knock your character out; this means
that you aren't just fighting a re-skin of the exact same henchman in every
area.
Apart from this, there doesn't seem to be much variety in
patterns of attack from henchmen or boss fights. In three or four hours of
gameplay, holding the Z button to lock on, running at an enemy and pressing the
A button repeatedly whilst waving the Wii Remote was a sure-fire way of beating
every boss and every henchman I ever encountered.
Although the bosses are very different and unique from an
aesthetic perspective, I'd like to see fights that need to be handled in
different ways in order to win. You could have boss characters that run away
from you, or who solely throw projectiles so you have to find a way to get close
to them in order to attack; some kind of unique features that mean you can't
just rush forward, lock on and press A repeatedly.
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| Press A. Just keep pressing A. (Source: IGN.com) |
Immersion
The game creates a world beyond you just simply fighting
opponents and creeping up the assassin rankings; there are several places you
can visit to gain money, new clothes, new weapons and improve your strength and
stamina. Many of these areas involve mini games that are nothing to do with
beat 'em up action, but there are also revenge missions you can undertake.
These all work to make you feel as though you on a genuine quest, and allow you
several breaks from the standard gameplay in order to do something a bit
different.
Despite all this, you are effectively just walking into
various parts of town and slashing at people. There's only so much time you'll
want to spend doing this before you just switch off the game. The fact that
each area is so discrete and contained means you spend a lot of time stopping
and starting while a cutscene plays and you are returned to your hotel to pick
a new location. This feels a little jarring when you're trying to make your way
through the game, as you don't seem to spend that much time physically playing.
Perhaps it would be fun to implement gameplay to get you
from your hotel to a fight location, such as a driving game or having to evade
lower ranked assassins trying to steal your title. This game feels like it
needs something to connect each fight together and prolong the amount of time
you get to actually play the game before a cutscene happens that halts your
interaction.
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| What the hub world lacks in soul, it gains in economy. And primary colours. (Source: IGN.com) |
Cameras
The camera is third person and follows your character
around. As the levels are 3D in layout, objects and enemies can end up out of
your field of vision as a result. The game includes a radar in the corner of
the screen as well as a camera reset option to reduce the chance of enemies
sneaking up on you from behind, and to help you locate them.
The difficulty I found was that when you tried to turn
around, often the camera wouldn't follow you; instead you would just get a good
look at Travis' face and t-shirt logo. When you're trying to locate an enemy -
especially one that's attacking you - this proves to be a little awkward. You
can reset the camera, and you can angle yourself roughly in the right direction
using the radar, but I'd much rather be able to just look around my
environment.
It would be nice if you were able to have a button that you
could hold down to always orientate the camera to whichever direction you were
facing, thus allowing you to look around an area through 360 degrees and lock
onto enemies.
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| 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...' Still more subtle than the game references. (Source: IGN.com) |
Controls
The controls are relatively straight-forward to use; you
move with the control stick on the Nunchuck and attack with the Wii Remote,
where the more times you hammer on the A button, the more combo attacks you can
string together. There are also a number of QTEs which are denoted onscreen by symbols
showing you which direction to move your Wii Remote. This feels quite
intuitive, and it's unlikely you will find yourself flummoxed by the controls.
On top of this, you also get hints popping up in early levels to remind you of
the controls.
The one thing I didn't like was using your ecstasy meter to
enter darkside mode. You were supposed to press the minus button to access this
when your meter was full, but half of the time this never seemed to work unless
you then fought a bunch of enemies, where it would activate at some arbitrary
moment. Oh, and in the 8-bit games, the controls were sometimes irritatingly
unresponsive; several occasions I died because my character wouldn't move in
the direction I had pushed the control stick. This became especially apparent
in one of the pipe-laying mini-games; in order to lay a piece of piping, you
need to be facing the direction you want to place it, and this is quite
difficult to achieve in the tiny space you have in the playing field when using
the Nunchuck control stick.
I don't see why darkside mode can't just be activated when
you press the minus button - you aren’t going to be able to activate it
accidentally, given the layout of the rest of the controls. For the mini-games,
it would have perhaps made more sense to get the user to use the Wii Remote
horizontally. The Wii Remote D pad is more suited to 2D movements in a small
space, and you could use the 1 and 2 buttons instead of A and B. As the 8-bit
mini games have their own load screens and are suitably distinct from the rest
of the gameplay, it wouldn't have been intrusive to make that switch.
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| QTE activated! (Source: gamespy.com) |
Ideas
There are a lot of neat, fun ideas that make this an
intriguing game. The mixture of 3D rendered and 8-bit retro graphics sound
ridiculous on paper, but it really works and gives the world a quirky feel. The
fact that this is carried over into several 8-bit mini games where you can earn
money to purchase consumables (the game cheerfully refers to this as 'whoring
yourself out') means you aren't just hacking away at enemies all the time, and
you actually get a lot of variety within the game. There are other cute
features, such as your character owning a fat cat that you need to exercise in
order to get him to lose weight, as well as the ability to unlock episodes of a
made-up anime show which your character is a fan of. The sheer over the top
character design means that you are always facing aesthetically interesting
assassins that you need to defeat, and the game does try to make these as
varied as possible; one assassin you actually end up fighting in huge robot
mechas where you both tower above the skyscrapers in the city. There's a
strong, if simple, narrative and there is a lot of gallows humour running
through the game (you consistently save your game in the toilet, for starters).
The constant attacks on the fourth wall also add to the tongue-in-cheek effect.
There's also a lot of irritating issues with some of the
features, however. The narrative is very simple - you need to ascend the
rankings of assassins to avenge your friend's death. On the other hand, the
game tells at least part of the story in flash forwards to the future. This
means the game you are playing has already happened, so what exactly are you
supposed to be affecting as the player? The way the game layout is designed is
clearly meant to make getting to a ranking fight, or a mini-game, or purchasing
an item as swift a process as possible; you simply exit your hotel room and
select from a list the place you want to go. From here, the camera pans down
into the map and you are greeted with the level or shop you have selected. The
problem with this is that it makes the world feel really false; you don't go
anywhere, you don't move around the world and you get no sense of scale or your
environment. Although the boss fights are aesthetically wildly different, the
way you physically defeat them is not - you lock on, wiggle the Wii Remote and
press A repeatedly until they die.
I can certainly appreciate the economy in movement between
battles, side missions and inventory areas is a good thing, but I think it
would have helped enormously if there was some sort of gameplay to take to from
your motel to the ranking battles; perhaps some kind of motorbike section or
escaping lower ranked assassins trying to get you. I would also have liked to
see boss fights where you have to employ quite different strategies - for example,
very defensive opponents who only give you a small window to attack, or
opponents who are very fast and therefore difficult to catch up to in order to
deliver a beat down. I hate to come down like a ton of bricks on a narrative
idea, but I really think that having the player essentially playing a flashback
is awful; you're supposed to be controlling what happens, and the moment you
realise that you're not, it ruins the illusion. If you want to employ a
technique of showing the future, even making it something as hokey as a shaman
showing you an image from the future is better; the part of the game you are
physically controlling as a player is the part that should be the present.
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| Giant mechas! Everybody loves giant mechas! (Source: IGN.com) |
Memories
This is a brash, crude, but fun and tongue-in-cheek game
that balances hyper gore and sex with a stylised comic-book design. The huge
variety in gameplay styles means that within this one self-contained game you
could be doing anything from fighting opponents, cooking steaks, delivering
pizzas, chasing bugs or playing with you cat. The humour is consistently
childish - the steak-cooking mini game is called 'Man the Meat' and the
character introducing it makes plenty of references to man meat - and you're
under no illusions as to the tone and theme of the whole game. All henchmen and
bosses are killed in a satisfying mess of gore and body parts, and if you get
fed up of all the violence, you can go and play an uber cute shoot 'em up based
on Travis' favourite anime.
Although the brash, crude, infantile tone and humour of the
game is funny at times and should be funny all the time, it falls flat because
of poor story crafting. Travis feels like the cheapest wish-fulfilment avatar
ever created; he has no substance and suffers no real consequences for his
actions (even when his friend is killed, it just feels like an excuse for him
to be 'noble' about his need to kill everything in sight). He's also
simultaneously a complete dork and the ultimate badass, which doesn't really
make a lot of sense (at least, not in the way the game portrays this). The cool
and sexy Sylvia should be completely out of his league, and yet she's played as
a viable romantic interest despite Travis' seduction technique consisting
entirely of gawping at her obvious assets and churning out painfully unfunny one-liners.
The more I played of this game, the more obvious it was that the makers did not
expect anyone other than fourteen year old boys to enjoy this; somewhat
ironically, given the PEGI 16+ rating. Now, I'm aware of the fact the media I
am exposed to is around ninety five percent male gaze and I can still enjoy
films, music and games; this, however, was the first time I've felt actively
excluded from a video game by virtue of my age and gender.
The sad thing about my complaints is that they could have
been easily addressed without changing the overall theme of crude humour,
violence and sex. All this game needed was a little more self-awareness; it's
far too earnest at times when it should just poke fun at itself. Make Travis
this badass dork character whose badassery is a front which wobbles, or a dork
trying to squash down his badass side; he'd be a lot more likable if he had
some genuine internal conflict, and it could all be played for laughs. If you
want Sylvia to be this uber-sexualised creature who's nothing but tits and ass,
then make her completely unobtainable; this way she at least seems to be aware
of her status and milking it for all it's worth. You want your stereotypical
camp gym instructor in a tight pink body suit? Fine, but do something
surprising with it such as making him the most hardcode badass of the entire
game. If the story, characters and world design had been thought about in this
way, younger players who are so inclined would have been able to enjoy the sex
and violence while ignoring the ironic undertones, and older players of all
genders could have appreciated the self-mocking tone behind it all.
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| There comes a point in the game where this is the only way you'll recognise Sylvia, given this is what you see of her the most. (Source: gamespy.com) |
Overall, there is a lot of fun to be had playing this game;
it’s over the top and ridiculous, as well as having a wide variety of game
styles to fool around with. At the end of the day, however, it’s a
straight-forward ‘Streets of Rage’ style beat ‘em up in a hollow world with
some cute bells and whistles. That’s not a bad thing, but neither is it an epic
market-changer.
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