| No More Heroes (Wii) | 
 enlarge | From: Rising Star
Category: Video Games
List Price: £39.99
Buy New: £15.50
You Save: £24.49 (61%)
New (18) Used (8) from £14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 1032
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: Video Game
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: RVL P RNHP
EAN: 5060102950578
ASIN: B000YSCA3I
Release Date: October 3, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
No More Heroes tells the story of Travis Touchdown, an animA fan who lives in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, California.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Geek chic October 31, 2008
No More Heroes is a game with a unique sense of style. It draws from varied, even dispirit sources such as Star Wars, 8bit games, anime, luchador wrestling and act as a homage, parody, satire of these various sources. The game swings dramatically in style putting together almost contradictory, with interface elements that resemble an 8bit game placed on top of slick cel shaded graphics. It mixes drama and tragedy with humour and fourth wall breaking in the same breath. In a strange way these contradictory elements make the game more remorseless, the humour next to the brutalty instead of undermining it is unapologetic, even callous.
Set in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, California, the game is to some extent an exercise in Americana. But in the same way Desperate Dan is in the old west with red British Mail post boxes, Santa Destroy has many of the idiosyncrasies of Japan. The main character, Travis Touchdown, is an "Otaku Assassin" and fan of all the various geekery that permeates the game. He's an exercise in geek chic, he's vain, apparently clothe obsessed, and gets the kind of hold from his hair products I envy. He's not a straight forward protagonist though, he's cold, cruel even bordering sadistic but he's not a mindless killer.
The graphics are cel shaded, but they definitely aren't in an anime style. There is a kind of realism to the graphics, the characters don't have unnaturally smooth featureless skin and they are fairly senibly proportioned for example, it's a strange mix but it works. The characters look great but the environments sometimes suffer a bit in the looks department.
The combat in the game is mixed, Travis fights with a combination of a "Beam Katana" (read: "light saber" is copy righted) and professional wrestling. bashing A will get you through most fights but it is a little deeper than that. Tactical use of Travis' entire arsenal of moves finishers, knock downs and stuns can increase the speed of fights. However there is quite a steep difficulty with the boss fights and you quickly learn that a reckless offence won't work.
The free roaming element is almost entirely pointless. There is nothing very little to do and it adds a lot of dead time when doing missions. I don't really want to say the game would be better without it entirely though, it does add a sense of location and connection with the setting, it would have been nice though if once the novelty had worn off it was skipable and you just warp to your location as well as there being more to actually do with it. One of the biggest problems with the game is that most of your time is spent on this free roaming bit between the main levels. The levels themselves are too short and the side missions are repetitive, the part time jobs (such as mowing a lawn or retrieving cats) are amusing but only the first time.
Probably the weakest point of the game is the "free battles" which require you not to take a hit. The problem is the combat doesn't really support you and you can get hit with no real fault of the player. This wouldn't have even been that bad if upon failing a free battle you could immediately re-try but instead you can't try again for about 15 minutes. The quickest way is to reload a save and ride back to free battle. The free battles are optional and don't unlock anything and I enjoyed the game a lot more when I simply chose not to do them. It does seem strange though that such an obviously broken part of the game, that could have so easily been fixed was not.
The high point of the game is it's boss fights, the last two particularly standing out. They really show case the combat best and force you to fight smart. It seems a big oversight that there is no option to just replay a boss fight without loading a save or playing through the game again.
The PAL version of this game is slightly censored, there's a bit more blood in the US version but you can't by default play other region games on a Wii.
No More Heroes is divisive game; if you don't buy into it's style and geek chic there will be little to carry you through the weaker parts of the game. It's actually more fun on the second play through carrying over your completed game so you can focus just on replaying the main story but this underlines how short the main game is taking barely more than a couple of hours. Despite it's flaws overall it's a great game. There are very few Wii exclusive games aimed at the more traditional gaming market and this is probably the best I've played.
Come on, blood or no blood, great game. September 14, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This game has had a lot of insults because of the lack of blood. i love gore in films and i am attracted to gory games such as madworld and at first was excited abut the blood in this game.
When i realised there was no blood and it was censored, i was a bit confused as to why, but i knew it was such a great game that i had to hav it. I ordered it off of amazon and finished it in about 2months. (im a casual gamer, okay?)
who cares there's no blood, to be honest ithink as much as the blood looked cool, i think the effect when they die is actually better because it adds to the whole attitude of the gme. its a really wierd game and the whole black dust effect works with the games attitude perfectly. do not be put of bye the idiots saying its really bad because it makes no difference.
and if ur really so shallow that you "NEED" the blood then it really isnt a huge problem. but just understand, it really doesnt matter.
 No More Button Bashing August 31, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
The spiritual sequel to Killer 7, No More Heroes shares a striking visual style, but is also very hit and miss.
The game is essentially a free roamer, starring an impressively named Travis Touchdown who aims to be the best hitman in the town.
He does this by earning enough cash to arrange the next 'meet'. This can be done by completing side jobs, or assassination missions in Santa Destroy.
These side jobs are impressively varied mini-games.
Litter picking, lawn mowing, pest control, motorbike daredevil and graffiti remover are some of the jobs available as the game progresses.
Sadly the game gets into a groove, that; excluding a few quirky moments (the game turns into a scrolling side shooter at one point), becomes repetitive far too quickly. Like Assassins Creed, the game soon feels like meeting criteria in order to advance to the next target. All work and no fun for the most part. Yet all the boss battles are memorable, imaginative and well animated.
The combat is essentially a button basher. The 'beam katana' makes some imaginative use of the Wii Remote, and can be upgraded in power. But constantly presing A ruins a potentially deep and rewarding combat system.
Some side missions involve wiping out every enemy without taking a single hit. Frustrating, as the combat isnt as sophisticated as the developers seem to think.
Travis' motorbike is also pretty weak. It can be jumped by shaking the Wii Remote but reacts incredibly slowly. The game loses a lot of its shine when moving quickly on the bike, jagged edges are everywhere, and can look messy. As the bike is the quickest way to get around, expect to see this a lot.
Obviously No More Heroes was never aiming for GTA or even Crackdown levels of detail, but it is disappointing there isnt more to do in Santa Destroy.
There are hardly any pedestrians, or traffic, and no random moments as a result. Dumpsters hide cash or extra clothes to wear. And an alcohoilc will teach Travis extra moves by finding him balls throughout the map! But thats about it. Lots of originality, but not always successful.
An excellent example of excellent gameplay July 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
No More Heroes is a shiny gem in the third-party swamp of mediocrity of the Wii's library. The action is incredibly addictive, the satirical plot is excellent and the soundtrack is very suited to the game.
The plot follows antisocial otaki Travis Touchdown, an avid japanophile gamer who buys a beam katana and decides to become the #1 assasin in the world after inadvertantly killing #11.
The gameplay is simplistic and fun. The main gameplay is in the assasination missions, where you must run around in a specific map killing everything that moves. TO that end, you use the beam katana. Hammering A slices, and to perform a death strike you swing the Wii Remote in a specific direction. Very simple, very fun.
Since this has to be concise, let me phrase it this way - this game is fun. Very very fun. Buy it. Now.
 Repetitive and dull July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
leaving censorship aside which seems to be the main reason behind other low score reviews for this game, the game is essentially mindlessly repetitive and gets dull rather quickly. The graphics really are rather poor, the in game map resembles something from an early 90's tile game and this makes using it quite difficult. The same weapon is used for all fights which relies on rapid button mashing until your enemies are dead. The rather dull fight sequences are seperated by small jobs which again rely largely on press button repeatedly until your time runs out. Not enough variation to keep the game interesting.
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