#15. No More Heroes
This is a game that makes no apologies. Violent, frenetic, overly stylized, often profane, certainly amoral, and never less than wonderfully surreal.
No More Heroes begins with the main character, Travis Touchdown, explaining in about thirty seconds that gamers don’t have any patience, that he’s an assassin, and that he’s on a mission to kill the ten best-ranked assassins in the world – and if the player thinks that sounds like fun, then he’s welcome to come along for the bloodbath. Travis is a particularly apathetic character, in the truest sense of the word. Yes, he comes out and says “I want to be the best,” but he seems to want that out of a lack of anything better to do; and even then, he’s only on this bloody quest because some hot chick with a French accent browbeat him into it. He’s designer Suda51’s commentary on gamer culture as a whole: a skinny, anime-and-comics obsessed, hedonistic slacker with no direction that isn’t forcefed by someone else, and no sense that anything he or anyone else does matters. Generation Whatever. And look what he offers us. Here’s a senseless bloodbath! With cool poses! Isn’t this fun. Enjoy.
And damn, if it isn’t fun. I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about the combat system, but it’s fluid, easy to intuit, and gleefully gory. There are some nice bits with the Wiimote that make you feel cool, by putting your motions in sync with Travis’. The game is shot beautifully as well. There are some camera issues in the missions themselves, but the way that Travis moves around the hub apartment is shot and cut like an interactive montage, and by itself is one of the slickest interfaces I’ve seen yet.
Frankly, it’s nice to see a game of this maturity (by the ESRB’s definition) making use of the Wii’s potential, regardless of the system’s family-friendly base. That said, perhaps there’s a maturity in the way Travis is brought into the system. I don’t think gamers are in danger of becoming sociopaths, not by a long shot – but Travis treats the game world the way that your average player would: none of his actions matter (because they can be replayed), everything in the world exists solely for his enjoyment (which it does), violence is entertaining for its own sake, and so on. The difference, of course, is that I realize the world of No More Heroes is fictional, and that my actions in-game have no consequence on my real life*. Characters usually don’t, particularly those tasked with saving Hyrule or Azeroth or what have you. Travis speaks through the fourth wall; he realizes he’s just another character, and acts accordingly.
That said, this is a pretty tame version of Grand Theft Auto IV, when all’s said and done. Travis’ assassination missions are bloody as hell, but the world itself? There’s no running rampant that’s not specifically prescribed by the game. Apart from the ten major missions and numerous side missions, Travis can spend a lot of time exploring the town of Santa Destroy – and yet there’s none of the mayhem you’d expect from other, similar sandbox titles. If you try to run down pedestrians, they jump out of the way. If you try to smash into cars, the cars win, and you and your bike have to dust yourselves off and drive off in shame. So there’s violence, yes, but violence, oddly, with a time and place. You’re a mindless killer most of the time, but during the day you have to mow lawns and collect coconuts just like everyone else.
The more I play of No More Heroes, the more I’m convinced that the entire game is a commentary on games. Sure, the main characters often speak cutely out of context (“push the A button, stupid” or “how dare you throw in a late-game plot twist!”), but it’s the actions the player is allowed to take that really say something. This is far cleverer than Postal 2′s “It’s only as violent as you are” tagline – an unfair assertion, when the player is given nothing to do in-game but be violent. Here, the player character is a fan of anime, action figures, hot chicks, and Star Wars (just look at his homemade “beam katana”), has little to no purpose in life, is full of snarky one-liners and a desire to be powerful pretty much for its own sake….He is us, or at least the popular conception of the stereotypical gamer. And he says as much to us! More than that, the sound effects, many of the in-game items, and the HUD itself are gloriously 8 bit, presented with all the flair of casino-inspired mid-80s pixel art. There’s nothing quite like hearing that bleeping “new mission” sound effect; this is retro style at its best, and it works for a game so steeped in gaming. The world of Santa Destroy doesn’t stand on its own; it stands on at least 40 years of digital gaming history. Even the title makes a comment: we’re used to heroes in games, but they’re often the ones that do the most damage to the world. Not this time – Suda51 isn’t giving it to us. Instead, we’re forced to look at ourselves, and at the ridiculousness of the worlds we enjoy.
So maybe we should just turn our brains off, as requested, and enjoy it. Short and simple enough for ya?
*I’m talking about single-player here, of course. When other people get involved, things get a lot more complicated.
