No More Heroes Hands-on
Suda 51's latest Wii project's one cool action title.
by Craig Harris
September 21, 2007 - The last time game designer Suda 51 (real name Suda Goichi) made a splash in the videogame scene was when he and Capcom released Killer 7 for the GameCube. If you were one of the eight people who owned the game, congrats! You played a title that was more style than substance, but it still made a significant impact in the realm of videogaming. Same thing with his team's follow-up on the Nintendo DS, Contact. But after playing his latest project, No More Heroes on the Wii, we're pretty sure that his and his team's vision will appeal to a lot more people this time.
Marvelous Entertainment had No More Heroes on display at its booth at the Tokyo Game Show this week where we had the opportunity to play through a specially constructed demo version of the game. The short experience definitely made us sad when it ended, and left us wanting more after sitting on the "Thanks for playing" screen.
The demo version of No More Heroes introduced us to the game's cel-shaded visual style as well as it's rather straightforward action structure. Move your character with the Nunchuk's analog stick, punch with the A button, and kick with the B button. You can target enemies and objects with the Z trigger. The character lead (as well as many enemies) wields what looks to be a cross between a Star Wars lightsaber and a fluorescent light tube, used as a weapon to wallop the bad guys. It needs to be charged up every so often, by hitting the 1 button on the Wii remote and shaking it like one of those flashlights that never run out.
In this demo, you simply wander around outside and in warehouses, fighting waves of thugs by punching and kicking. Every so often you'll activate a special move that requires a motion from the Wii remote or Nunchuk to pull off - this is indicated by an old-school style pixilated arrow in the direction you need to motion. The game keeps tabs on combo strings and rewards accordingly.
Halfway through the demo the lead character receives a call on his phone - the in-game voice-over appeared to be spoken in English, but the phone call could be heard in Japanese if you put the Wii Remote up to your ear and listened to the speaker. After this, it was another session of butt-kicking, and then a boss battle against a very Power Ranger-like badguy who zapped energy in special attacks that needed to be avoided with side-steps using control motions and D-pad press combinations. The demo ended either after a death or once the boss was defeated.
The game runs at a smooth clip but definitely had its fair share of "still in development" framerate glitches. We love the style, including the pixel dust explosions of the enemies after they shatter from existence. It proves you don't need gushing blood to have satisfaction of taking out the bad guys.
We're definitely looking forward to the game's US release from UbiSoft.
Suda 51's latest Wii project's one cool action title.
by Craig Harris
September 21, 2007 - The last time game designer Suda 51 (real name Suda Goichi) made a splash in the videogame scene was when he and Capcom released Killer 7 for the GameCube. If you were one of the eight people who owned the game, congrats! You played a title that was more style than substance, but it still made a significant impact in the realm of videogaming. Same thing with his team's follow-up on the Nintendo DS, Contact. But after playing his latest project, No More Heroes on the Wii, we're pretty sure that his and his team's vision will appeal to a lot more people this time.
Marvelous Entertainment had No More Heroes on display at its booth at the Tokyo Game Show this week where we had the opportunity to play through a specially constructed demo version of the game. The short experience definitely made us sad when it ended, and left us wanting more after sitting on the "Thanks for playing" screen.
The demo version of No More Heroes introduced us to the game's cel-shaded visual style as well as it's rather straightforward action structure. Move your character with the Nunchuk's analog stick, punch with the A button, and kick with the B button. You can target enemies and objects with the Z trigger. The character lead (as well as many enemies) wields what looks to be a cross between a Star Wars lightsaber and a fluorescent light tube, used as a weapon to wallop the bad guys. It needs to be charged up every so often, by hitting the 1 button on the Wii remote and shaking it like one of those flashlights that never run out.
In this demo, you simply wander around outside and in warehouses, fighting waves of thugs by punching and kicking. Every so often you'll activate a special move that requires a motion from the Wii remote or Nunchuk to pull off - this is indicated by an old-school style pixilated arrow in the direction you need to motion. The game keeps tabs on combo strings and rewards accordingly.
Halfway through the demo the lead character receives a call on his phone - the in-game voice-over appeared to be spoken in English, but the phone call could be heard in Japanese if you put the Wii Remote up to your ear and listened to the speaker. After this, it was another session of butt-kicking, and then a boss battle against a very Power Ranger-like badguy who zapped energy in special attacks that needed to be avoided with side-steps using control motions and D-pad press combinations. The demo ended either after a death or once the boss was defeated.
The game runs at a smooth clip but definitely had its fair share of "still in development" framerate glitches. We love the style, including the pixel dust explosions of the enemies after they shatter from existence. It proves you don't need gushing blood to have satisfaction of taking out the bad guys.
We're definitely looking forward to the game's US release from UbiSoft.
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