Top 10 Games of the Seventh Generation Consoles - #2: No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

While there have been plenty of solid sequels and revamps of classic titles on the seventh generation titles, few developers have dared to tread into brand-new territory. Few have dared to create something so bold as No More Heroes. Much as I love the Mass Effect sequels, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and the other games that found their way onto this list, they are all sequels or spiritual successors to previous releases. Though the No More Heroes titles do draw inspiration from contemporary hack-and-slash action titles and 8-bit arcade-y games, the culmination is a wonderful breath of fresh air, not just to the genre, but to video games as an entertainment medium.

Both the original No More Heroes and its sequel Desperate Struggle are (among other things) unapologetic – Travis Touchdown slices and dices his foes into bloody pools, spouting off vulgar one-liners during his moments of downtime that are equal parts awesome and silly. The original game defined a brand-new experience and was one of the earliest Wii titles to really nail the motion controls down by balancing those with a traditional button/joystick combo. While No More Heroes boasts many a colorful environment and memorable assassin, the sequel cleaned up the entire experienced, streamlining the overworld and amping up the combat just enough that it was more fast-paced without teetering into the realm of frenetic.

The sequel also saw a more focused, darker story – one of Travis seeking revenge – which still managed to balance the silly with the gritty. While the first game was more off-the-walls goofy, the references to Star Wars and Back to the Future therein seemed unorganized and random compared to the sequel’s mecha boss fight between robots inspired by anime Space Runaway Ideon and Gurren Lagann, or a narrow forest whose twisted dead trees and red night sky were an obvious nod to Capcom’s explosively popular Resident Evil 4. Instead of giving off the impression that the game was chock full of ideas that creator Suda51 thought were cool, NMH2 came across as more of a love letter – not only to the creative minds behind the works Suda was paying homage to, but to fans of the original NMH as well.

Personally, I am a bit partial to Desperate Struggle. It’s much easier to jump into, has a higher degree of replayability due to its time attack Death Match mode and general faster pacing. But I won’t deny that the boss fights in the original No More Heroes were some of the best I’ve experienced in any game. Being such a huge fan as I am of the Legend of Zelda series, that is the standard with which I compare the boss fights of any and all other video games, and it is incredibly rare that another title provides as consistently high-quality encounters. But the UAA ranking matches in the NMH games are truly something to behold – a brilliant mesh of flair and challenge that defines the core of the experience.

Wii U review: ZombiU

ZombiU is survival-horror in the most literal sense. You are dropped into post-zombie outbreak London with little more than a cricket bat to bash in the skulls of the infected, a flashlight with a slowly draining battery that must take a few seconds to recharge after it hits zero, and a single pistol. While you can find submachine guns, shotguns, a crossbow, and a sniper rifle out in the various locales you’ll visit, the ammunition for any of these is extremely limited, and aiming at any part of a zombie’s body that isn’t the head won’t do you much good. You’re going to have to be tactical and conservative if you want to stay alive, and the game does provide you with quite a few options, be it the slow-and-steady routine of taking out one zombie at a time, or being gutsy and using yourself as bait to lure a group of zombies into a tunnel or other confined area before tossing a grenade or moltov cocktail into their ranks. ZombiU hones in on the story of the survivor and the narrating/instructing character known as the Prepper, and thus does not lose itself in trying to explain a larger world beyond the plague that hit London.

There are two single-player variants you can choose from. The more challenging mode gives you one shot to make it to the end of the game without being killed. If you are taken down by the infected, that’s all she wrote - you will have to start over from the beginning, regardless of how far into the campaign you made it. The standard settings are a bit more forgiving, putting you in the boots of a new survivor in the event that your current character becomes one of the infected. However, ZombiU still gives you something of a slap on the wrist - all the weapons, ammo, and health items you were carrying at the time of your unfortunate demise are still being carried by your previous character. To retrieve them (which is highly recommended), you will need to trek back through previously explored territory and kill the now-infected survivor. Any zombies you managed to kill before your previous character joined their ranks will stay dead, but your former self will put up more of a fight than any run-of-the-mill zombie.

As you progress through the game, you will be able to upgrade the pad that acts as both your radar and ranged hacking tool, and can eventually use it to pick up secret codes written on walls and decipher archaic messages left by the Ravens of Dee. Dispatching stronger zombies that emit red fumes from their body will reward you with one of four upgrades to your weapons, which can then be applied to whichever weapon you see fit at a workbench located in one of the safehouses. The gamepad can also be used as a scope for long-range weapons, and can zoom in to 2x and 4x distances. Occasionally, the game will also import other ZombiU players or individuals from your friends list as zombies that can reward you with a decent trove of supplies.

There are a little over a half dozen locales you’ll visit as you scour London for the CCV boxes, Letters of Dee, and so on. Each is quite wonderfully realized, though some are significantly smaller than others, due to their context in the plot. One of ZombiU’s greatest strengths is the presentation of places like Buckingham Palace, the Brick Lane Flats, and the Tower of London, due to the unique assets found within each. One flat includes a bathroom and bedroom with one body reclined in a bathtub, another individual lying on the floor next to the toilet, and three more figures piled onto a single bed, providing some insight into how others might have spent their last moments before the plague hit. The one-time use of objects like marble statues, a nursery playhouse, and a single accessible boat docked in the river really help define the experience and identify these areas as unique. The fact that few environmental objects are recycled shows that the ZombiU development team put a lot of love and care into the final product.

ZombiU may not be terrifying 24/7, but is spooky and tense throughout. That said, when the game wants to make you jump, it will do things like force you into incredibly tight quarters or have some outside factor cause your radar to drop out completely and be replaced with loud, nerve-wracking static. Traveling through areas like old city sewers, will cause dust to gather at the corners of your screen, and bright sources of light can obstruct your field of vision, a couple of nice additional touches on the part of the development team. Curiously, a brief Metroid-style segment wherein you are temporarily stripped of nearly all your gear is easily the game’s weakest point, and follows almost immediately after one of the game’s most challenging and brilliantly-executed segments. ZombiU does not have many low points, thankfully, and the aforementioned segment is but one blight on an otherwise exceptional eight-to-ten hour experience.

My rating: 9 (out of 10)

ZombiU journal - entry two

Now that I’ve gotten through scouring Buckingham Palace, I have to say I am even more impressed with the environment designs in ZombiU. While I won’t spoil any of the plot, I will say that there is part not long after the quest in Buckingham Palace that requires you to visit an apartment complex. While some rooms are blocked off or barricaded, the ones that you are allowed to enter are strikingly different in their layout and décor.

One such apartment handles this masterfully, the trash and bodies left behind offering a glimpse into the actions of what others were doing when the plague hit – specifically, there are disco lights dancing off the walls, trance music breaking the eerie near-silence otherwise perpetuated throughout the game, one body reclining in a bathtub, three piled on to the same bed, and one zombie left crawling on the bathroom floor. While that last one was likely the developers having fun with the idea of a zombie mimicking some guy drunk off his ass, the other bits are great little additions that the ZombiU team didn’t have to put in the game, but they did anyways and it made the experience all the more engaging.

Another aspect of the game that I absolutely love is the random imports of other players and people from your friends list as zombies. I was minding my own business earlier this afternoon, exploring Buckingham Palace, when I noticed the online moniker a friend of mine uses displayed above the head of one of the infected. While it took a few extra swings of my cricket bat to bash his head in, the rewards made it well worth it. Each of these uniquely identified zombies that I’ve encountered has carried with him/her a random assortment of ammo, food, health kits, and barricade materials that allowed me to stock up quite nicely before taking on the now-rather-sizeable hordes of infected. I may be getting to explore larger, more detailed (and by association, more exciting) locales now, but the game certainly isn’t apologetic in keeping the challenge up.

ZombiU journal - entry one

So it took me a little while to really get into the mood to play ZombiU, but now that I’ve actually made a bit of progress with the campaign, I can say that it’s classic survival horror in the most literal sense. It’s been quite linear so far, sure, but there’s a tense atmosphere about it, thanks to a number of factors. First off, you cannot save wherever/whenever you like. You have to find a sleeping bag, your main save location being the subway safe house you will return to after each mission. However, in Metroid fashion, you can also locate small safe houses set a little out of the way in the otherwise zombie-filled streets of London. Saving at these spots can save you a solid chunk of time that would otherwise be spent performing the trial-and-error process of retracing your steps through zombie territory.

The limited number of slots in your backpack and the fact that you have to pause the game in order to swap out items in your immediate inventory add to the tension. You’ll need to smack each zombie a few times with the cricket bat before they are dead, making it more ideal for one-on-one encounters than fighting off a group. While you can scavenge for ammo, grenades, and moltov cocktails, these are few and far between and you’ll want to reserve them for large groups.

The game looks quite good overall, too. Some of the textures aren’t great and certain in-game objects don’t appear to have a significant step-up on games from last generation’s consoles. But the environments are fantastic in both scope and presentation. Whether it’s specks of dust obscuring your vision ever so slightly, moonlight shining down through grates into London’s old sewers, or a downpour streaming off the sides of industrial crates, ZombiU’s various areas are both interesting to take in and highly successful at immersing you in this contemporary apocalypse. It certainly doesn’t hurt that there are unique assets in abandoned apartments and grocery stores to help set them apart from traditional barricaded areas, abandoned vehicles, broken fences, etc. The controls really aid the immersion as well, and I’m glad to see that developers other than Nintendo are doing great things with the gamepad so early on in the Wii U’s life cycle.

Wii review: No More Heroes

Travis Touchdown is a socially awkward otaku who just happens to have some serious skill wielding a beam katana. After blowing all of his money at the bar one night, he decides to take up the offer presented by Sylvia Christel to enter the United Assassin's Association. Travis has two goals in mind: become the number one ranked assassin in Santa Destroy, and get Sylvia in bed with him. After defeating Helter Skelter, Travis is qualified to challenge the remaining ten assassins, each of whom utilizes a different style of combat.

No More Heroes plays out as sort of a "greatest hits" series of boss fights. Each boss is preceded by a short level wherein Travis must take down weaker henchmen. As the game progresses, these areas become longer and the henchmen become stronger, equipping themselves with blunt objects and firearms. When it comes to the actual boss fights, though, the game does not disappoint. Some of the other assassin's use a more straightforward approach, while others utilize their environment. Some are able to use ranged attack, while others prove deadly at close-quarters. Each of the boss characters is quite well-developed and carries a strong presence - fights against Destroyman, Bad Girl, and Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii will be just as memorable as their names.

The pace does slow down in-between boss fights, as Travis must earn enough money to qualify to enter each. At first, Travis is only able to access side jobs that range from collecting coconuts to mowing lawns to picking up trash. And while those descriptions don't sound particularly enticing, the way the game utilizes the motion controls makes them mildly entertaining. The fact that each side job only lasts a brief while keeps them from getting stale too quickly.

After properly completing a side job, Travis' employer will inform him that there are assassination gigs accessible at various locales in Santa Destroy. The first few prove incredibly straightforward - either kill a specific target or take out everyone in the area. Later assassination missions will add further restrictions, like taking out a line of enemies by hitting a baseball at them with your beam katana or only using wrestling moves. The more strict the rules of an assassination mission, the more money Travis will earn. After a few times running the routine of side job-assassination mission-boss fight, it's easy to pin down a rhythm to quickly earn the required funds.

Aside from putting his money toward the next fight, Travis can visit a number of locales around Santa Destroy. At Area 51, Travis can pick up some new clothes, and at Thunder Ryu's gym he can pay for lessons to improve his physical stats. Travis can also visit the lab of Dr. Naomi, a woman who develops new models of beam katanas. Back at Travis' motel room, he can kill time playing the game-within-a-game known as Bizarre Jelly, help his overweight cat exercise, swap the models of beam katanas he has amassed, and save the game by sitting on the toilet.

The first time Travis sits down on the toilet is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this game's unique sense of style. It's chock full of humor, from references to other video games and anime, to Travis occasionally breaking the fourth wall. Character designs and environments are bright and colorful, while the soundtrack is an awesome culmination of techno, rock, chiptune, and even a few metal songs.

The motion controls are worked into nearly every nook and cranny of the experience. Swinging the Wiimote lets Travis strike with his beam katana, wiggling it back and forth will recharge it when his batteries are low, and a combination of the Wiimote and Nunchuk allows him to take down enemies with a variety of wrestling maneuvers. In the event that Travis locks swords with his opponent, a prompt will appear indicating the Wiimote be spun in a certain direction in order to gain the upper hand. When Travis reduces the health bar of one enemy to zero, a prompt will appear indicating he swing either vertically or horizontally. This attack can take out not only the main enemy being targeted, but also those nearby. Each time Travis gets a kill, a small slot machine will roll at the bottom of the screen, with a winning combo granting Travis brief use of a handful of powered-up attacks.

The Wiimote will need to be tilted from side to side in order to steer the lawnmower, and back-and-forth motions with the Wiimote and Nunchuck will help Travis exercise. Only when Travis is driving his futuristic motorcycle around town does the game suffer from less-than-spectacular controls. Sometimes the bike will boost with only a small amount of acceleration applied, and bumping into practically anything and everything will send Travis flying out of his seat. Navigating Santa Destroy is easy enough - the map is only so large. But there isn't much interesting to look at outside of the key locales.

The story does not take itself too seriously, but develops at a steady pace that allows players to gain a better understanding of who Travis Touchdown is and how his character evolves from the moment he sets out to become number one to the moment he enters the final boss fight. The side jobs are a bit lackluster, and the transition from fast and intense boss fight to slow and careful work proves a bit of an annoyance at first. That said, the boss fights are outstanding - as varied and as enjoyable as something like The Legend of Zelda series could dish out. No More Heroes is one wild ride - an incredible gaming experience that is also beautifully creative. The unique blend of action and style Suda 51 brings forth in No More Heroes leads it to be as much of a video game as it is a work of art.

My rating: 9.5 (out of 10)

Watch Dogs E3 gameplay trailer

One of the sleeper hits from E3 that many people have been talking about is Watch Dogs, a new game from Ubisoft. It's a sort of man vs. computers scenario, but with a contemporary setting and implications that ring close to our own real present-day world. Graphically, the game looks gorgeous, and the gameplay seems both stealth-based and tactical. I'm a big fan of this whole idea of hiding in plain sight and using the environment to your advantage. I'll be keeping my eye on Watch Dogs as more information is revealed.

Story trailer:



Gameplay trailer:

ZombiU E3 trailer

Looks like Ubisoft has been cooking up a new game for the Wii U. It is titled ZombiU, and is set in London where (you guessed it) a zombie breakout has occurred. While no actual gameplay has been shown yet, this trailer does a great job of showing just how impressive the graphics will look on Nintendo's new system. Despite the overall vibe of the trailer ringing very close to that of Dead Island's teaser, I think the fact that every scene is presented as a still shot is the best choice possible, since it allows us to better view the ridiculous amount of detail worked into everything.

Assassin's Creed III E3 gameplay

Believe it or not, I've actually never played much of the Assassin's Creed games before. I got a taste of the first game, which wasn't really my style, though the second looked interesting enough. I guess I just always found other titles that looked more appealing. But Assassin's Creed III is the first game in the series that really stands out to me, largely because of the setting. The Revolutionary War era is a time period rarely explored in video games, and while Assassin's Creed III is certain to add plenty of elements that are entirely fictionalized, the idea in and of itself just seems cool to me. I don't know if I'm actually going to buy this game or not, but I am pretty impressed with how seamlessly the gameplay transitions from stealth to action.