The trend with M-rated games is to make them more explicit, more sexual, more vulgar, more violent. As if any of that actually made the games more mature. I mean, everyone knows that adding vulgarity and random sex jokes is a cheap way of making something more suited for adults. Having more mature themes may help, although most themes can be brought up even in works aimed at children – the best example is Zootopia, the recent Disney film, which discussed racism in a more mature way than you’d ever expect a Disney movie to. However, a common trait of M-rated games is that they’re openly sexual and offensive, just for kicks.
Not only are these games violent and vulgar, they know
they are violent and vulgar, and are not ashamed to tell you. The
characters of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which I reviewed in the past
two weeks, slip blowjob and transsexual prostitute jokes at the drop of a hat,
when they’re not in the middle of plotting to kill each other. The announcers
of MadWorld, which I played (but haven’t completed yet), make more offensive
remarks than you can shake a stick at. It’s like South Park’s influence, to be
as vulgar as humanly possible in order to get laughs, has perverted all of adult-rated
media. The difference being that South Park usually adds an interesting message
about society. Even the so-called “comedians” using video games as basis for
their songs and parodies join in; Egoraptor’s band Starbomb is using those as
if they were afraid the Apocalypse was coming and the only way to stop it was
to make as many dirty jokes and innuendos as possible. Case in point, the old man in the cave wants Link to give him a handjob, and Luigi and Mario are on a race to see which of them gets into Peach’s privates first. Both catchy songs
and the animation’s pretty good (and yes, it is rather funny), but completely immature.
Another common trait of M-rated games is that they
don’t hide any trace of cynicism about the world. That’s a theme I’ve seen in
both Chinatown Wars, MadWorld and today’s game: Cynicism and fatality. These
worlds are dark. These worlds are depressing. They’re full of monstrous people
who are only the villains because your character is marginally better than
them. And sometimes, not even better. There's nary a good guy in sight. These stories are deep on the cynical end
of the spectrum. Violence is a part of their world, it’s an undeniable fact of
life, and no matter how cartoony it may become, it remains disturbing, often
unpleasant too. The comedy is there to counterbalance the horrible world shown
to us. Want some idealism? Go watch some Disney. Go play Super Mario. There is
no place for idealism here; Today, I’m tackling No More Heroes, one of the
darker Wii games. Gear up, this will get bloody.
Geez, that's almost worthy of being called a rapey face. |
Guess the hardest part in becoming an assassin is to avoid losing your head. |
The weapon clash; a fun mechanic that adds a little something new to the battle system. |
When an enemy gets dizzy (from receiving many hits in
rapid succession or getting kicked), when nearby you can press B to have Travis
do a wrestling move on this opponent; commands will appear on-screen, showing
in which direction you must move both the Wii remote and the Nunchuk, at which
Travis will start the move; then a second command, in which Travis deals a
strong blow. These wrestling moves, also called Suplexes, are learned by Travis
during your first playthrough of the game, and are some of the more useful
moves as they can deal more damage to the bosses than constantly hitting with
the beam katana.
And thus approaches the fight. Travis receives a call
from Sylvia – and what’s awesome in this game is that, when Sylvia calls, her
voices comes out of the Wii remote. As in, your Wiimote IS Travis’s cell phone.
Cool idea there. That doesn’t make her speech entirely clear, but still, that’s
pretty nice. Sylvia invites Travis to heal himself before heading out into the
fight, and stop to save his file – a double entendre that doesn’t mean he’s
gonna go and jack off, it means he’s gonna go take a dump. No, really, Travis
saves by going to the can. I’m not making that up. But if you want an innuendo about jacking
off, look no further than the way Travis recharges his beam katana… In fact,
I’m not sure we can even call that an innuendo, it’s too obvious for that.
Wait. What was that? That's not from the game! Um… let’s move on.
One of the more interesting elements of No More Heroes
is the ranked assassins themselves. Each one has a unique, awesome design; a
personality that shines when you first meet them, and leaves a great
impression; a fight that is suitably difficult for assassins like them, as they
can take dozens of hits; and of course, most of them have a memorable, epic
theme song. Have I mentioned that the music in this game is incredible? No
really, it’s one of the best video game soundtracks out there. Many tracks are
odd mixes of genres that still manage to work together.
And he gets booty for free? Damn lucky dude. |
Back at the hotel room, where Travis lives with his
cat Jeane. Outside of the Ranked Battles, No More Heroes is actually a
wide-open sandbox game, just like GTA Chinatown Wars; however, while there are
many things to do around Santa Destroy, you don’t have the total freedom that you can feel in other examples of the genre. There are still many options, starting
with the things available in Travis’s modest domain:
-A toilet, so you can save at any moment;
-Travis’s collection of wrestling trading cards, which
you can collect throughout the game. There’s 150 of those, 5 per level per
difficulty in the game (which means that to truly achieve 100% completion, you
need to beat the game at Sweet, Mild AND Bitter difficulties). The cards won in higher difficulties are concept art and interesting info about the characters;
-Jeane, his cat; he can play with her a moment,
causing cuteness overload in the player. Seriously though, as much an asshole
as Travis may be, he has a cat and takes good care of her. Maybe a hint that
he’s not quite as bad…;
-Fridge, if you need a quick energy
refill;
-TV, which is a special case; Travis can watch videos
that he gets at his good friend Bishop’s rental store. Those videos can teach
Travis new Suplexes. You can also watch the original trailer for the game, from
back when it was called Heroes, and play a shoot-em up minigame featuring
Travis’ favorite game, Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly. The least we say about
that in-game series, the better, though we can say Travis has a weird
appreciation of the underage girls in it… And already I said too much;
-Moving on to Travis’s bedroom, we can see a
telephone, which can be used to check if Travis has any messages. Since most
“messages” are shown in cutscenes, it’s not needed much;
-A map of Santa Destroy, in two versions; one that
lists all the hot spots, both the places of interest to make money; and the other shows locations
of the Ranked Battles and other assassination gigs.
-By looking in the drawer under his bed, Travis can equip any other
beam katana he comes to buy during the game. There’s Doctor Naomi living almost
right next door to him, who builds new beam katana models with more laser
blades (up to 5!) as the game progresses and sells these new models to him, with upgrades.
-Last but not least, Travis’s clothing is fully customizable,
with the possibility to stop by the clothing store to buy more clothes. He can
change the color of his glasses, and he can also put on a new jacket, a new
T-shirt, new pants, or a new belt.
I say we go into the Ranked Battle against assassin #9,
shall we? It takes place at the Destroy Stadium, located at a distance from
Travis’s hotel. However, before Travis can leave, he gets informed by Sylvia
that he needs to collect money to get to the next Ranked Battle. And not just
any small amount either; 150,000 of the game’s currency. That’s fucking huge.
In fact, that’s one of the lesser aspects of this game; in order to move the
plot forward, Travis needs to go around collecting money. I’ll go back over
the many places of interest in Part 2. You collect the money for the next
Ranked Battle by completing assassination jobs and doing small mini-game chores
around town. Since every gig and job can be done as often as you want, you
can settle on certain chores that offer big rewards, although since the jobs
and chores are unlocked as the story progresses, you might not be able to rack
in money very quickly. Thankfully, all the jobs and chores you unlocked in a
playthrough will still be unlocked in the next, making the money-collecting at
least a little quicker.
Okay, we’ll waste time on the wide open sandbox aspect
in Part 2, right now we have a rendez-vous with an assassin, a gunslinger, a
cop, a doctor, an excellent singer and a terrible father, all rolled into one
weird guy who goes by the name Doctor Peace. Destroy Stadium is used for
baseball games, and thus when Travis gets there he is welcomed by a horde of
baseball players wielding bats, balls and, in some cases, their own beam
katanas. Travis runs through the stadium’s rooms, killing all the enemies in
the way, and reaches the diamond. Doctor Peace is there, singing a beautiful song.
What a tenor, too. Impressive. Almost touching. Peace talks about his life, and
Travis is outraged to find out that his money, the entrance fee to get into
that bloody battle in the first place, has been given to Peace and he already
spent most of it. Gee, that’s just great.
So now the fight starts, and let me tell you, Doctor
Peace didn’t steal his reputation as a gunslinger. It’s still pretty easy, as Travis
has to come closer to hit Peace and get in plenty of hits, and you merely need to dodge the bullets. As I said, suplexes
will also help. Soon, Peace is defeated, and Travis ends him by slicing his
hands off. Again. And thus Sylvia shows up, announces Travis’s rank-up, and
Travis leaves.
How about we continue this Monday?
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