Troy Benedict, Senior Writer

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle Review

When I described No More Heroes 2 in my first impression, I said that it felt a lot like Crank 2: High Voltage, the hyperactive, over-the-top violent action film staring Jason Stratham. After completing the game, No More Heroes 2 is a lot like Quentin Tarantino's two-part epic revenge film: Kill Bill, with a slight mix of other violent cinema mixed in for good measure.

Having not played the first game, I can't compare the two games, but what I can say is that there were a lot of things I liked about No More Heroes 2, and only a handful of things I really disliked.

For a fast-paced, off-the-wall action game, it was surprising how much No More Heroes 2 tries to tell a story. It's a confusing one, that sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense—but for a game that I was expecting to have a shallow hack-and-slash experience, it was one helluva worthwhile ride!

The basic idea behind the game is that you are Travis Touchdown, the No More Hero. You must work your way through the rankings to become the #1 assassin in Santa Destroy. Yes, that is the actual name of the city, and it's not surprising it's a harbor for assassins and killers.

Thankfully, you don't have to work your way through 50 individual levels of murder to challenge each ranked assassin—doing so would quickly become repetitive. Instead, the developers were creative (albeit the results were sometimes odd) with the way you can quickly work your way to the top. Each assassin has their own personality, and reminded me of the unique cast of killers from the Arnold Schwartenegger movie Running Man. One assassin is a cold war, space suit-toting Soviet, one is an anime school girl, another is a 70's style blacksploitation film super-pimp, and the last example is a baby-faced giant who is hiding out in a decrepid old house.

Each assassin follows a certain pattern, and exploiting it will help you defeat them, but in all honesty a lot of dodging and button-mashing worked well for me. I played through the game on the easy mode, and only at a few times did I find myself on the verge of frustration. The easy mode also seemed to provide enough of a challenge that I almost wonder if the normal difficulty would have been a little too frustrating.

Travis wields a beam katana, a variation of the popular lightsaber of Star Wars fame. Throughout the game you can acquire and purchase different variations of the weapon.

While the beam katana is Travis' main choice for killin', he also happens to be a fan of wrestling, and has some melee attacks that he can use in the event that his beam katana runs out of juice. He can also learn new finishing moves for melee attacks by acquiring and reading new wrestling magazines in his hotel room. I rarely ever relied on non-beam katana attacks, as I found them to be useless and ineffective.

Killing is not the only thing that Travis can do. He can play a variety of throw-back 8-bit minigames to earn money. With this money he can purchase new clothing and accessories. He can also help his cat Jeane lose weight by doing a variety of cat-exercising minigames. Travis can also increase his strength and stamina by going to the gym and playing additional 8-bit style games.

Without giving away spoilers, Travis is not the only character that you can control. However, I wasn't impressed with some of the more "platforming" elements that needed to be perfomed with one of the characters. Trying to jump onto objects to get to higher areas was one of the most frustrating parts of the game, and thankfully this requirement was only reserved for a very small portion of the game.

The game's visual style seems to find homage in the gritty 60's and 70's style American cinema, like Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. For a Wii game it looks okay, but as I mentioned in my first impressions, I think this game would look even cooler on a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360 in high definition.

Outside of the waggling for a finishing move, the use of the Wii remote's motion-sensitivity was minimal. In fact, it's possible to use the Wii's classic controller for all of your movement. For a sword-wielding game, there was very little in the game that could only be done on the Wii.

No More Heroes 2 took me a little over seven hours to complete. I focused mostly on the game's main storyline, and not so much on the 8-bit minigames and character customizing, but I did give each game a couple of good attempts. Some levels took more than 30 minutes to complete, while others were finished in only a few minutes.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is an M-rated game and is very liberal with its fountains of blood, bad language, and heavy sexual themes and innuendo. If you enjoy the cinema stylings of Quentin Tarantino, with a healthy dose of eccentricism and Japanese pop-culture, you'll probably really enjoy this.

Despite its strong violence and anti-social themes, I found the game and its eclectic cast of characters to be charming and enjoyable. In a game that has the potential to become repetitive, the developers made a good attempt to shake things up a bit, to avoid a stale experience. It's certainly not for everybody, but if you're looking for an enjoyable M-rated game for the Wii, that doesn't take itself too seriously, I highly recommend checking out No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle.