Nick Adams Games Blog

Whats the first image that creeps into your mind when you picture an assassin? Is it a man in a suit, probably wearing dark glasses and wielding a ranged weapon like a silenced pistol or sniper rifle? Chances are, it won’t be an Otaku guy in jeans, anime t-shirt and jacket, wearing sunflower glasses wielding a Star Wars inspired ‘Beam Katana’. Unless you’re Suda 51, the quirky creator of such twisted and dark games like Killer 7.

No More Heroes is about making this protagonist, Travis Touchdown, become the number one ranked assassin in the country. Fortunately for him all of the other higher ranked assassins reside in his hometown of Santa Destroy, a city mainly populated by thugs, drifters and other people who are basically fodder for your rampage as you hack and slash your way to your goal. Along the way you’ll meet rival assassins as outrageous as yourself, such as the delivery boy turned super villain, or cheerleader who hits people with a burning baseball bat.

In the right hands, the trusty Beam Katana can make short work of the many enemies you’ll encounter, reducing them to nothing as your poor victims explode into dust, bizarrely releasing a shower of coins. If this wasn’t odd enough, killing an enemy also activates a roulette wheel which will could unleash the “dark side” mode. This mode will make you do things like instant fatalities on enemies or go into a first person perspective as you shoot bolts of energy at your unsuspecting foes with each swing.

The actual combat itself is very intuitive – there’s a button to slice with the Beam Katana, a button to melee your opponents and a button to block. The Wii mote is subtly used – holding it upright or down facing towards the screen makes high or low attacks respectively. When you’ve worn down an enemy, a swing with the Wii mote at the prompt will execute a finishing move. The Wii mote and Nunchuk are also used in tandem to perform a variety of wrestling moves which Travis also has at his disposal.

The city of Santa Destroy is free to explore as an open world as Travis rides around on his turbo powered bike. Don’t be fooled by an mini map in the corner of the screen and the fact that you’re allowed to drive everywhere in the city: this is a world away from being a GTA clone. Nevermind the fact that you can’t interact with pedestrians or other cars, the choppy framerate and wild amounts of pop up make it genuinely look like an N64 game.

Perhaps its not the most satisfying part of the game, but at least the open world sections act as a hub connecting you to a variety of shops and other places. The clothes shop, Area 51 lets you kit out Travis in memorable clothes such as a pink T-Shirt boldly exclaiming “You say Psycho like its a bad thing!”, blood stained grey jeans and snake skin belts. You can also travel to the gym, where you can increase your life meter and strength through short energetic bouts with the motion sensing controllers.

Although Travis is a hitman, hes not above taking menial jobs to help raise funds for things like cool clothes and a gym membership. You can opt to do such side quests as coconut collecting, cat rescue and lawn mowing to earn some pocket money. There’s benefit you more than earning some cash, they’ll also unlock some sinister assassination side missions.

Visually this game has a very striking shadowy cell shaded art style, giving everything a rather edgy graphic novel look to it. The presentation in general will be a delight to anyone who has plays retro games, as a recurring theme of 8 bit chimes and pixel art crop up during Travis’ adventure.

Its not a 40 hour romping epic, but this is a game that will keep you busy for a reasonable amount of time. The open world section has a sensible amount of collectibles to find (later in the game you can get a radar to help you) and there are some super hard 1-hit kill battle modes to unlock and fight through for the gamer who loves to push the boundaries.

As a Wii exclusive title, this is certainly worth trying out. There’s simply nothing else on the console that offers the interesting visuals, quirky story and bizarre humour. Its by no means perfect; the open world sections let the game down, the fighting doesn’t massively develop and the general tone will not be to everyone’s taste. But if you can see past that, this is without doubt one of the Wii’s underrated gems of gaming.

8/10