Horrific story

Alright, everybody. I have a horrific story to tell tonight. If you have a weak stomach, just scroll past this part until I start talking about No More Heroes. For those of you brave enough to trudge on...

I have witnessed the full effect of antidepressant drugs tonight. A working superior of mine (who will remain anonymous) was under the influence tonight. He's normally a semi-cynical bastard. Well, tonight, as he started his shift...he was completely different. Gleefully, he would greet customers as they pulled up to place their orders at our humble Burger King, grinning like a fool the entire time. He did his best to make the customers get their order with a smile on their face. And get this - it didn't appear that he needed to put forth any effort at all to do this. At the time, I was stunned. How could the cynical person I had grown to know be so suddenly transformed? There's only one answer: Drugs.

And then I had one of the most disturbing images I have ever thought of. Imagine for a moment that you've just walked into a Burger King. Now imagine that everyone working there had to take an antidepressant before starting their shift. All of the work force is cheery and smiling and laughing. Gleefully they take your order and assemble it on a tray or in a bag. They can only grin foolishly as a coke is spilled for the umpteenth time.

This is officially my new version of hell. A place where people enjoy working fast food. If such a place does exist, then there really is no god and I was right.

For those of you that skipped the above section, you're all pussies.

No More Heroes! One of the few mature games for the Wii, one of the fewer decent games! You're a semi-personified Japanese-obsessed nerd...except for the fact you have a BEAM KATANA and you're a former pro-wrestler. It's pretty great to see the audience that No More Heroes is catering to. Along with having posters and figurines of an unnamed typical Japanese anime (edit: I just checked, and it's called Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly...erm, I should have left it unnamed), he also has a record of renting and not returning a lot of porno videos.

I'm beginning to wonder if I need to mark this for adult content.

Travis Touchdown*, the main character, is scouted out by the lovely-breasted Sylvia...someone. I forgot her last name. Anyways, he's scouted out by this chick with her shirt half undone (caaaatering) to enter the official USAA assassin's association or some bullshit...basically, he's entered into this corporation to kill 10 other, higher ranked assassins, and become the best of them all. As far as I can see, Travis' entire motivation to do this is that killing is fun and Sylvia will let him sleep with her if he becomes the best.



*This is Travis. Not a terrible guy, but freakin' creepy. If you read the manual (like ME), you see he has a "long lost love" named Jeane. He also has a cat named Jeane. STRANGE.

There are a lot of funny quirks to the game, though. You always save by sitting on a toilet. Your beam katana has to be recharged every now and then, which is done by pressing the 1 button and vigorously shaking the Wiimote (which puzzles me, since shouldn't all the teenage boys with their hands in their pants be...nevermind). After killing an enemy by either slashing them or body slamming them and then slashing them, you might get a power-up prompted by the shouting of say, "Strawberry on the Shortcake", followed by Travis going super-saiyan. You do little jobs like picking up litter or moving lawns to make money, which prompts your client to request you to kill someone. I'm not sure when that became a good indicator of who's good to go to when you need someone killed, but then again, I suppose it's called "No More Heroes" for a reason, eh?

I could go on for a while on all the weird little things in this game. But that makes it very unique, and it's obvious it doesn't take itself too seriously, so I can look past the obvious chauvinism and push my natural feminism away in favor of having a good time.

There is a rather large killing point on the game for me, though, and no pun intended. When you're fighting the main bosses (the ranked assassins you kill to get higher in rank yourself), the game suddenly drops the pretense of being a humorous game and becomes serious and story-oriented. The boss fights themselves are a little boring and tedious as it comes down to just waiting until the bosses are vulnerable to either a throw or a couple nicely placed slashes. After the fight, you get a little bit of storyline and drama...then you're thrown back in the town of Santa Destroy, to get enough money to do the next fight. It's a little jarring and kinda disrupts the flow, to me, but I can also see how it would, say, stir anticipation.

But in a game with so many quirks and such, a fight that ends with [MINOR SPOILERS] Travis saying "I'm sorry for not saying this sooner...but I love your soul." after winning against one of the assassins...[END MINOR SPOILERS] Well, it doesn't seem to fit.

Anyways, I'm done being a SERIOUS GAME CRITIC, so I'm going to move on to making fun of some of the more ridiculous boss fights of the game (read: the ones I did last night). If you plan on picking up this game later and absolutely DESPISE spoilers, just stop reading this entire post (did you not read my horrific story at the top too? ARE YOU GOING TO READ ANY OF THIS POST?) because there are MINOR SPOILERS. But nothing that's going to ruin the fucking game.

Ranked whatever: Destroyman.

Have any of you ever played Xenosaga? No? Well there was a (female) character in the game that had a VAGINA CANNON. One of my favorite moves to use. Well, Destroyman had a VAGINA CANNON too. Which is true because HE IS A GIRL. Not literally you weirdo. But he's a parody of a superhero (see City of Heroes) with moves like DESTROY BEAM, or DESTROY CANNON. And he is a complete and total pussy. He can't even actually fly, so midway through the fight he gets some rope to hoist himself into the air. Talk about failing.

Ranking on the awesomeness scale: -10/10

Ranked whatever: Holly Summers

An army woman with a robotic leg. Now, this boss fight DOES follow the previously mentioned pattern of block/dodge and smack the boss whenever they decide they want to be hit, but...well, did I mention the ASS MISSLES? This is one of the most unfair fights I've encountered to this point. Let me explain.

The fight takes place on a beach. You fight your way through a horde or two of enemies...where you have to deal with LAND MINES. I didn't have too much of a problem with them, but there are two scenes where Travis is BLOW THE FUCK ACROSS THE BEACH, creating a feeling of unfairness. Then, when you're fighting the actual boss, she has various holes dug into the beach, which you can fall into and most certainly will at least 10 times. She then laughingly tosses a grenade in and watches you struggle to get out in time. If you're NOT in a hole, though, you're trying to avoid her shovel attacks and grenades and did I mention the ASS MISSLES? Those things are just completely unfair. You could have just climbed out of a hole and then? ASS MISSLE'D to the face.

My last two complaints about this fight: This boss can run WAY faster than you, and abuses it. Also, she can run over her own holes...even if they're not covered. Apparently she has some sort of levitation device in that leg of hers. So you're chasing after her, and if you haven't fallen into all of the holes on the beach at LEAST once, you're more than likely going to fall into one, crawl out just in time to avoid the grenades, and get hit by ASS MISSLES.
Trying a new font again. I'll probably be playing around with them for a bit, so I would appreciate the feedback from anyone who's actually reading this. Also, I think I'll be updating every couple of days. For those of you that don't know what a couple is, that's two. Once every two days, or maybe consecutively if I get a good idea. Finally, do you realize the ass-ton of sprites I have to make just to make a character in a game MOVE, nevermind fight? And don't get me started on the enemies!

Want to tell this author what you think, but you don't want anyone else to see it? Think she's full of it and need to set her straight? Want to worship the ground she walks on? Well, good luck with that last one, but you can email Chrys at catharticgamer@yahoo.com and at least tell her what you think.