Raining Blood

Going into No More Heroes I was excited for a game that was an over the top experience that spoke to video game and anime fanatics. It’s style accomplishes this right out of the gate, but the game as a whole falls a little short. No More Heroes does an excellent job of grabbing you in with a character in Travis Touchdown that is bad ass, but at the same time has the same wants and needs of your average gamer (girls out of their league, fighting hordes of henchmen, and of course money). No More Heroes does a fantastic job of letting you know right off the bat, this is a video game, we know this a video game, and we made this game for people who like video games way too much. At no point does it try to be more than what it is.

The concept of No More Heroes in a nutshell is Travis Touchdown starts out as the eleventh ranked assassin, and must continue to kill those ranked ahead of him to become number one. Each assassin along your path to number one has a unique style, and these battles are the best part of the game, but as it goes on they seem to get less interesting and the fights become less exciting. Even Travis’ banter with the enemies seems to trail off as the game goes on. Whether this is to show that he is becoming colder by the entire experience, or that there simply wasn’t anymore material I do not know, but either way it made the confrontations less enjoyable.



The biggest issue with No More Heroes is the time spent in between ranked fights. In order to drag out what would be a solid six to eight hour experience into a ten to twelve, you are forced to work in order to pay an entrance fee. This leads to navigating an city that has very little to no interaction, and taking part time jobs in the form of mini games. These mini games lead to assassination missions for more cash, which may sound like a good idea to keep the action up, but when you come to realize you’re just killing a Pizza Butt CEO four different times in a garage with the remaining assassinations just being kill guys until time runs out, it loses its pizzazz.

When it is all said and done No More Heroes is a great action title for the Wii when you consider its library of Mature action games. While it seems that I didn’t enjoy the game at all, it was worth the rent and to some Wii only owners it could be worth a buy with replays on harder difficulties, and the fact there isn’t much of this type of game on Wii. To multi console owners I say keep yourself busy with Devil May Cry 4 and wait for Ninja Gaiden 2.

Legends of Rock Heroes in Paradise at Twilight

I gave myself a rather large gaming task list today. Finish Twilight Princess, get 80% completion in Burnout Paradise, beat the solo guitar tour on hard in Rock Band, and finally bang out as much of No More Heroes if time would allow.

The first task I decided to bang out was completing the solo guitar tour in Rock Band. While Rock Band's guitar difficulty doesn't touch Guitar Hero III, things can get a little rough at the end. The final song Green Grass and High Tides by The Outlaws is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine with its two really long and quite frankly pretty insane solos. This of course rewarded me with a respectable 90 gamerpoints and a golden guitar for my efforts. Status: Complete

In Burnout I have begun working on banging out some of the road rules times around the city. While I am starting to narrow down my options there is still way too much to do in Paradise City (EA talking about DLC will only help this statement). I have 44 events until my burnout elite license, around 20 some billboards, lord knows how many smashes, and just about every showtime left just waiting for me to stamp on my license. With that said I'm sitting at around 77%. Status: Currently playing

This brings us to Twilight Princess, which I can now safely take off of games I need to beat. I was a little late to the party, but I still had a good time. That said it didn't win over my heart like some past Zelda games. The world of Hyrule feels like an after thought with very forgettable characters and areas. While there are a few dungeons that keep you on your toes, I found most of them a little slower than I'm use to, with boss fights that didn't really get going until the very end. With all this said it is by no means a bad game, its just not a step forward for the series in my opinion. Twilight Princess feels like a game that was made for those that didn't bother to play Wind Waker because of its cel-shaded graphics, when I for one believe Wind Waker is a much better game. Status: Accomplished

I didn't get too far into No More Heroes today, but I have enjoyed it for the most part so far. The combat is extremely fun, and Travis Touchdown is earning a spot in my heart of hearts. The Wii remote finishing moves help keep the repetitive nature that you find in most action games fresh. The characters in No More Heroes are equally as fresh, if not more so. Each assassin has a style all their own, and Travis is never short on words. Some of the drawbacks to No More Heroes are that the open world isn't very appealing. With so much style in the story and the characters, I wonder if it is on purpose that the world is so bland in order to make them stand out more. Either way it just doesn't look nice to the eyes, and the side missions are really just a way to draw out the length of the game between missions. Hopefully I'll be able to have a full review sometime this weekend or early next week. Status: 8th ranked assassin

It was a great day to catch up on the games I've had sitting around (no car for a day will do that). With what seems to be a gap from here until mid March, I thankfully won't get backed up anytime soon.

Episode 22: Challenger Approaching! G-man!

As the people of New Jersey ready themselves to vote in the primaries tomorrow, the Scissors 61 crew can only wonder what could have been had some beloved characters been added to the Smash Bros. roster. I agree a dimension hopping final smash would be quite over powered for the likes of Half Life's G-man, but I'm sure the Friedman's* taskmaster would have some surprises. Join us for episode 22 for the search for flight 815, an extended rant on No More Heroes, how the makers of Too Human don't own a calendar, how Valve will someday rule over small countries, and what is probably the lamest week in DLC to date.

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*Friedman is Max's required mistake per podcast that was made while referring to the hero in Half Life and to MIT graduates everywhere, Gordan Freeman.