No More Heroes Review | Wii, Reviews | LITHCast

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No More Heroes Review


By Leslie Kivett

Game: No more Heroes.
Console: Wii
Developer: Suda 51/Ubisoft
ESRB: M for Mature

8-5-10

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Game: No more Heroes.
Console: Wii
Developer: Suda 51/Ubisoft
ESRB: M for Mature

sec-story
You are Travis Touchdown, and despite your name, an uber nerd. You've just won a beam Katana (light saber rip off) off an online auction, and now you think your a big hot shot for doing so. After being hired to kill a guy named Helter Skelter, you achieve the rank of 11th best assassin in he U.S.. After Killing Helter, Travis feels as as though he was meant to be an assassin. So he begins killing the other 10 assassin's that are ahead of him in rank. Travis has 2 main focuses for when he reaches #1. 1, he's the best, and 2 he gets "do" the U.A.A (United Assassin Association) agent that help Travis along. However, Travis begins to have think that maybe he's gotten himself in to far, and is doing more wrong things then right.

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Travis Touchdown with his faithful Beam Katana.

sec-game
No more Heroes plays like Zelda: Twilight Princess. An open world action adventure. However, in Zelda the fact that it was open world mattered, in Heroes, it doesn't. The game basically has you running around a badly designed town of Santa Destroy. Basically, its a one cycle game. Kill a boss, go home, get money to pay for entry fee to fight next boss, kill boss, repeat. However, getting the money to fight the bosses can be fun. For example, there are a number of Part-Time jobs available around Santa Destroy. 1 such job would be Lawn mowing, which is actually pretty fun, as well as scorpion exterminator and garbage duty. After completing those missions, is when the real money making begins. If you work hard enough, the employer will offer you a second job. A shadier job. He'll usually have someone he needs killed. Killing the designated target gives you triple perhaps quadruple the amount of money the part-time job gave you. My personal favorite is 100 man challenge. Kill 100 men in under 5 minutes. With all the money you have, you are bound to have some left over after paying for the 6 figure entry fee. You can use that extra cash to get some training from a local retired wrestling champ, get some new garb at the local clothes store, plenty of novelty T-shirts in this game. However, what you'll probably gonna wanna do with your spare cash is buy a new weapon. There are only 4 Katanas in the game, but the increase in power tremendously each time there is a new one available. In fact, some of them are inspired by assassins you have eliminated. For example, there is one powered by a "U.S. military secret" and one inspired by an old "Japanese Katana". Upon hitting someone with these beautiful weapons, a slot machine will spin on the bottom of the screen. If you get three matching prizes, Travis gets uber powers. For example, three bells results in being able to shoot lasers out of your blade. 3 bars puts you in Darkness mode, you Katana turns red and Travis becomes more brutal then ever. The only disadvantage to these glories weapons are their battery life. After about 6 or 7 minutes of using them, you will need to recharge them. To do this, hold down the 1 button and shake the wii mote wildly side to side. This will result in more battery and a funny scene to watch of Travis recharging it. Thats another thing I'd like to include in the gameplay section. The controls. This game uses the wiimote very well, but does not abuse it. Striking an enemy is controlled by pressing the A button, while the awesome slow-mo finishing moves are controlled by a horizontal or vertical swipe of the wiimote. Resulting in blood, more blood in a game then you have ever seen. Also, the bike controls are very nice. Accelerating = A, brake/reverse=B Turning=control stick, and wheely=horizontal swipe. Great controls and solid gameplay are both very apparent in Heroes.
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Heres a couple to look at. I won't show you the other 2. you have to see them for yourself.

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No more Heroes is a cell shaded game, however that does not excuse its lack of graphical power. Ultimately, it is nice looking, however, when your driving around Santa Destroy, the only buildings that use like 30% of the Wii's power are the ones you go to on a regular basis. Characters, however, are a different story. Nearly all of them look perfect in their own cell shaded style. No more Heroes may not make the best of the Wii's power, but it does look nice.

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The characters are truly the highlight of the game. Each of them having a unique style and attack technique. Also, each assassin has has his/her own story to tell, adding a sense of realism to the game. 1 assassin would be Dr. Peace, a corrupted detective with a crazy thirst for blood. I wont reveal more than him, because finding out the assassins is half the fun, trying to kill them is the other half. A lot of the comedy in the game is also related to assassins in the game. Even if you don't like everything else in this game (impossible) the assassins will keep you playing.

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Destroy Man!

sec-wrap
Overall, No more Heroes is a great action packed thrill ride full of comedic expressions, blood like you wouldn't believe, plenty of star wars references, and plot twists. A great game. Even though it is kinda short, I would recomend you buy it, its still fun the 3rd and 4th times around! I give No more Heroes an 8.5 out of 10.

Its also funny to see that the characters seem to know that they are in a video game.