Wii Fanboy favorite No More Heroes is the focus of this week's Zero Punctuation, and it actually gets off fairly easily compared to the roasting received by most games. In between describing Suda 51 as "the 51st result of an illegal Japanese cloning experiment to create the world's most auteur game designer" and fretting over what the game is satirizing and what it isn't, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw admits he enjoyed playing as Travis Touchdown, and eventually praises Grasshopper's game for its "unpredictable story and quirky aesthetics."
Finally, as if we didn't already admire the man enough, he reveals his deep-seated love of Branston Pickle. Way to make us forgive every mean thing you ever said about our favorite games, Yahtzee. Hit the break for the full, NSFW review.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-09-2008 @ 11:02PM
SoshiKitai said...
Awesome. :)
...man, if he liked it... I probably should've recommended it to my main video game provider. (he's the type that only likes Gears of War, but wanted to give the Wii a try) ... he sold his Wii recently. :(
*slap to the head*
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4-09-2008 @ 11:25PM
cole said...
You know... I always had that same feeling while playing the game, that some of the parts were intentionally poorly designed as a comment on other games of the genre.
About half way through the game I became convinced that the reason that the open world city is so dull and uneventful must be because Suda 51 was using it to make a comment about either his opinion that GTA offers a large expansive world with relatively little to do, or more likely, it was a statement about how most GTA clones do little to add to the sandbox genre and never live up to the high standard set by GTA.
So by intentionally making a rather boring sandbox city in NMH, the designer is simply mocking all the other games who try so hard to emulate GTA and fail...
But then I kept saying... that can't be right... if he really felt that way about GTA clones then the best way to show them up would be to make an awsome Suda 51 style GTA clone that really kicked ass.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but do you know what I mean? Did anyone else feel this way?
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4-09-2008 @ 11:31PM
Dustin said...
Nope. About 5 minutes into the game I screamed "What the hell is this crap?" in response to the "open environment."
But it is still a good game.
4-09-2008 @ 11:37PM
cole said...
Well thats exactly what I'm saying... Its almost as if Suda 51 wanted you to scream just that as a way of forcing us as gamers to realize that the entire genre of open world sandbox games is, at least in his opinion, crap. I think he got alot of heat for making Killer7 on-rails... so I felt like this was his way of saying... "OK you bastards you want open world, I'll give you open world! But its gona suck just like I think every open world game sucks!" I've never read that deeply into a video game design, but then again most games are pretty straight forward. NMH is anything but...
4-10-2008 @ 11:51AM
Croove55 said...
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I was disappointed by the city primarily because of the pedestrians. This is for two reasons. Number one, if you're going to put them in the game, they'd better do more than stumble and run when they get plowed by a motorcycle. That was their one purpose, and honestly, it wasn't done well. It seemed like Suda put them in to emulate other games (and perhaps parody them, that's up to personal discretion), which didn't work out well at all.
Number two, I wouldn't want the game to have wonderful pedestrian variety, interactivity, or A.I. No, I'd prefer the pedestrians to be incredibly sparse or nonexistant. That would return the feeling of isolation from Killer 7, which was ridiculously cool. If anyone else read the map in Travis's bedroom, it described the depressing state of Santa Destroy. I think that claim would have been better supported if the population of Santa Destroy only left their houses when absolutely necessary, and if the city had shown higher signs of wear and corruption in some areas. Hell, the shadows could have had a higher contrast to illustrate an oppressive heat wherever the sun hit. When you actually did see someone outside (such as the job center dude), it'd depict that they're someone with shady motives as well as a significant lack of sanity.
4-10-2008 @ 12:05AM
TheWarlock said...
Cole, if there ever was a way to think TOO much outside the box, then you definitely achieved it. I liked the video very much. In fact, I'm going to see it again tomorrow morning as a sort of way to start the day.
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4-10-2008 @ 12:12AM
cole said...
Thanks, all take that as a complement!
4-10-2008 @ 12:05AM
Mountain lion link said...
WOULD YOU GUYS JUST GET THE FUCK OVER THE GAME! Just seriously guys, it wasn't that good.
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4-10-2008 @ 12:30AM
SoshiKitai said...
You're sounding like that "Nintendo fails" kid... except instead of trolling around Nintendo to bash on it, you just like going to every NMH topic to just say "SHUT UP"...
...you were the one that decided to waste your time on commenting here, you know that right?
4-10-2008 @ 12:50AM
hvnlysoldr said...
Yes it technically wasn't that good. But there's plenty of charm and quirk that many Nintendo fans love.
4-10-2008 @ 6:19AM
Haohmaru said...
You know what they say about opinions, right, MLL?
4-10-2008 @ 6:43AM
Brian said...
oh how wrong you are Mountain lion link
4-10-2008 @ 11:01AM
Mr Khan said...
Aye, you're entitled to your opinion, but quite shitting on all of us for ours
I hate my school computers, Flash videos are blocked :(
4-10-2008 @ 11:53AM
Croove55 said...
Sometimes people like things that you don't like. I'm.. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this?
4-10-2008 @ 6:00AM
Charcole said...
Yeah, it's pretty useless trying to get people to get over a decent cult video game.
Look at okami.
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4-10-2008 @ 6:21AM
Haohmaru said...
I enjoyed NMH, personally, from the quirky part-time jobs to the boss-assassin duels.
I still don't think "Yahtzee" is very funny, though.
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4-10-2008 @ 10:24AM
Timerider said...
What's Branston Pickle?
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4-10-2008 @ 11:49AM
chad said...
i hadn't heard of it either, but, of course, wikipedia has:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branston_Pickle
and just for the record, i like no more heroes.
4-10-2008 @ 10:31AM
Justin said...
I find it quite funny that people bash this game and it gets such high review. Zero Puncation rips games apart and they did it a little on this game, but for the most part they didn't. These are probably the same people that complain that the Wii has terrible graphics, but their PS3 is hooked up to at 19 inch color TV in their moms basement. Then they will respond to this comment saying they have some 60" plasma with full surround sound and they give the line Shut Up or some childish response. This is Wii Fanboy, it is all stuff Wii, don't bash a game because you don't like it, bash it because it isn't good. And in this case this game is good, but just not for everyone.
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4-10-2008 @ 4:35PM
Mr Khan said...
His comment about the one kill to get you into Dark Side mode being the last enemy killed, then you run around with the useless superpowers for a while was spot on
But how did he play EarthBound? According to Wiki, it was never released in PAL-land
or did it lie to me?
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4-10-2008 @ 7:55PM
DomoBraden said...
"But how did he play EarthBound? According to Wiki, it was never released in PAL-land"
Hmm...I wonder.
4-10-2008 @ 4:52PM
jmf said...
Hilarious as always :)
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4-10-2008 @ 10:45PM
RatMasterD21 said...
that shit was priceless!
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