Happy 5th Birthday, killer7

Happy 5th Birthday, killer7.

I remember when I first heard about it, it was an early prototype trailer as featured on a disc that came with CUBE magazine. And I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I would never, ever play that game. How wrong I was.

After reading and watching more of it, not to mention eventually playing it, I was captivated. It's a game that keeps me thinking, even now, discovering new things and trying to make sense of it all. I guess killer7 changed my life; it made me realise that games don't have to just be about blowing shit up.

It's also introduced me to some pretty cool people over at the SINdicate, like BTDO, Topdrunkee, Xed and Lisker.

So thank you, GHM and thank you, Suda, for bringing us this marvelous piece of work.

No More No More No More No More Heroes

I finished NMH2 today. As a result, I managed to pinpoint the things that I miss that were present in the first game:

- Collecting money and shirts from dumpsters.
- The multi-layered heart that represents your life. In the new game, it just means you take more hits before a square disappears.
- Suda's marvelous trolling. I mean, I expected something totally huge, which I guess kind of worked on me, but then the ending came and nothing really happened.
- OXYGEN GRAFFITI

Well, here's to the next playthrough with the Classic Controller.

No More No More No More Heroes

Guess I've just been too lazy to update.

Anyway, No More Heroes 2 arrived in the mail yesterday, after about three weeks of waiting for Play-Asia to ship it out. So far, the wait has been so worth it.

The game seems quite short. Having a look at my playtime indicates that it probably is as long as the original No More Heroes, so maybe I've just been playing it obsessively.

Seriously though, this game is enjoyable as hell, not to mention as batshit insane as ever. And it pleases me greatly that some of the Darkside tracks are in here! Especially the We Are Finally Cowboys remix - it would have been cruel not to put that in there while playing as Henry.

A review soon, perhaps.

Start the hype machine up!

No More Heroes 2 is out in America tomorrow. Because I am one of the gamers that don't have much patience, I am importing my copy in. Waiting wouldn't be so bad if there was an actual date, but what can I do? My copy should come next week, with luck.

In the meantime, have an MP3. The following tune is No More Riot from the No More Heroes Sound Tracks - Dark Side album. The intro to the song was also present in one of the trailers released.

Download.

Expect more related hype posts in the coming days, especially since I have some unposted NMH2-related content.

He's got moves!

I am so ready to get down with Suda 51.

More stuff.

Videogames awards aside, more stuff.

This is belated, but XED from the K7 SINdicate has opened a new site, Paradise Hotel 51 which will one day be full of cult gaming resources (and is also the current host of the forum). Shameless plugging - I write for the site now. Go and check it out. We're going to build it up to be fantastic.

Anyway, Happy New Year, everyone. It's nice to know that if you are reading this, you are still alive, unless your definition of hell is reading my blog. Please ignore the spam. I'm working on deleting it all.

Happy anniversary, Jordaan.

Oh Ebay

Yeah, I mean...

Apparently, this is No More Heroes

As is this

I can see why they would be related to NMH, but really, that's kind of inexcusable, especially if you're trying to sell the goddamn games.

NO MORE EXCLUSIVES!

What

The game is indeed in the latest issue of Famitsu, which reveals that it's due out in Japan on February 25. Some new stuff being added for the platform jump include Japanese voice-acting and a game mode where the ladies aren't wearing too many clothes.

Suda's got his troll face on right now, I'll bet. I think the big question everyone is asking right now is:

UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS says:
how are they going to do the fappin motion recharge

Hero Worship

This brings the number of posters in my room up to... one.

Here we go again on the hype train

Finally found out about the new No More Heroes 2 videos. Gave them a watch. So, impressions abound!

Demo video #1 involved Travis running around in a mansion killing henchmen, much like the Townsend mansion in NMH. Battles seem a lot faster now, and enemies are much less predictable. There are enemies of varying sizes, as seen when a huge black guy with an axe started lumbering towards Travis and swinging wildly. Some of the smaller enemies also had firearms (!), weapons only seen in certain levels of NMH. Firearms were always annoying in NMH so maybe they'll add substantial challenge to some of the starting ranks.

Certain objects on the level are now destructible as well, as Travis was seen cutting through various potplants. Which brings me to the really cool bit: DUAL BEAM KATANAS! It was exciting to see them in action. (In a separate video, Suda says that you control the other beam katana with the Nunchuck, like in Oneechanbara. The animation is very fluid, except for when your katanas... fall into your enemies - they kind of just teleport, which looks very silly.

The UI has also changed slightly. The battery meter is now less of a meter and and is a tiny icon below a sad looking worm thing. Enemies also have different health meters, this time represented by several dots forming a circle. The dots start out green but turn red with health loss.

The voice acting also sounds top-notch, such as Travis panting and groaning loudly in a lecherous. Let's just say it's much more audible than it was in NMH.

Demo video #2 began at the beginning of the Rank #51 boss battle, complete with cutscene. Travis slices up the two women that Nathan Copeland (the boss) throws at him. Blood goes everywhere, heads are kicked, it's all very graphic. Travis's hair is also much spikier, much more badass.

Bosses (well, Nathan anyway) seem to be a lot easier to stun and throw.

And what excellent music! If the composer is, indeed, Masafumi Takada, it just shows how far and versatile he has become.

The only thing that I have to nitpick at in the second video is that I don't really like the way the health circle works in terms of boss battles. It certainly looks prettier and more minimalistic, but it's not as precise as a health bar, especially if some of the bosses have as much health as, say, Bad Girl in the original game.

Other things: Helter Skelter could be back, if this art does indeed, depict him. This will be a treat! Also returning is Destroyman in cyborg form! (I just want to say now that I totally called a character from the first game being turned into an android/robot happening in NMH2.) And another thing, the job missions are back, but this time, a lot of them are in 2D! Seen in one of the promotional trailers included a sidescrolling version of the coconut mission and a burger flipping mission.

And here's the new website.

Also, here's 1UP's cover story, to be updated daily until the 23rd!

I totally can't wait.

What is that rhythm?

I suck with the technicalities of music, what all the beats are called and whatever. But there's something about the rhythm in Masafumi Takada's earlier works that feels really special to me. Something about them that appeals to me a lot.

I have no idea what the term for them, but if you listen to:
- Without Chewing Gum Syrup
- Deep Shot of Midnight Sun (Both from Flower, Sun and Rain)
- The Silver Case (The title theme)

... hear that rhythm? That fast one that you could drum easily with your fingers? That one.

ALSO, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARU.

Saying goodbye to Paradise

Finished Flower, Sun and Rain. It's a beautiful, albeit confusing game, even if calling it a 'game' would be a bit of a stretch. The story is something to be expected from Suda 51, I suppose. It's quite easy to see how this all fits in with killer7 and even The Silver Case.

I'll admit though, the ending confused me. But I guess that's what all the time in the world is for.

"A paradise is a place separated from the world."

AWARDS

TRAVIS TOUCHDOWN, IS IT NOT?

New Year's Eve + Misc. Game Awards

The end of another fine year. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good year. A pretty good year for videogames too, for the most part. Hence, the following.

Best PS3 Game That Was Not A Sequel To Anything Else/Best Game No One Played
... So I guess that rules out most games. Anyway, Valkyria Chronicles. It was my Christmas present so I've only played it for like seven hours so it might get awful towards the end. I doubt it. It's very, very cool. It's basically turn-based-third-person-tactical-wartime-shooter. Which is very, very cool. The strategy portions make you feel like you are a big, tough general with your little rake that you use to push minature versions of all your units around, but the third-person-tactical-wartime-shooter part makes you feel like you are really there and that you are going to get shot in the face. Which I do on a regular basis. And then I feel guilty when a unit goes critical, but it's not like Fire Emblem where your shit is fucked up permanently if your HP is reduced to zero. On the topic of feeling guilty, onto the next category.

Best Game That Made Me Incredibly Guilty
Ah yes, I wanted to play Pikmin since the Gamecube first came out. I got mine on launch day along with Super Smash Bros. Melee. That was a good day. But they didn't have Pikmin, so maybe I got something in addition to Melee? Anyway. I borrowed it from good ol' Doctor J (and found out two days later that they were doing a remake on the Wii BUT THIS TIME WITH WAGGLE!).
Anyway. The Pikmin themselves are very fucking adorable. So adorable that whenever I hurl half my squad onto an enemy and watch as they take it down, I smile. But wait! The enemy's retaliating! Oh what the fuck, it's killed like four of them. At this point (in real life), I start yelling that I WILL KILL THAT FUCKER NO MATTER WHAT BECAUSE YOU KILLED MY PIKMIN. I defeat it. My remaining Pikmin hurl the monster's corpse back to my base, where it will be turned into seeds so that more Pikmin can sprout.
But the sense of guilt lingers. However, guilt does not equate to just feeling plain terrible. Thus, the next category.

Best Game That Turned Me Into An Emotional Wreck/Best Two-Year-Old-Game-That-Most-Of-Us-Played-This-Year
Mother 3 is sweet, quirky and one of the most charming games I've ever played. That being said, Mother 3 is probably also the most depressing game I have ever played.By halfway, it's pretty obvious how it's all going to end, but the way it was executed is amazing. You get the feeling that you could've done something to prevent the ending from happening but of course you can't, it's a game. But then the final scene comes in and like reality punching you in the face, reminds you that you were involved. You were as much a part of their world as all the characters were.
Of course, the whole 'Two Year' thing comes into play because the marvelous translation project was completed this year, which I made a big deal about when it happened. Speaking of big deals...

BIG DEALS PART ONE: Fuck Yes You Are The Cheapest Game Ever
Guess how much I bought Folklore at K-Mart for? Three-dollars-fucking-fifty-cents. I jest not. The box said $20 (a wonderful bargain for a PS3 game anyway) but when I took it up to the counter, it was $3.50. Holy shit.

BIG DEALS PART TWO: That One Game That I Would Not Shut Up About
Hey guys, remember when No More Heroes was first announced? And I jumped up and down and shouted 'OH HELL YES, HEROES IS GOING TO BE TOTALLY EXCELLENT.' From that day on, I marked NMH related stuff in my diary (like when the website was going to open), read all the interviews with Suda51, looked at the concept art and wailed like a little bitch when it was delayed. And then of course, NMH 2 was announced. I do believe the cycle will repeat itself. All this being said, I'm not really sure if I can give NMH 'Wii Game of The Year'. I'm tempted to give it to. Or I could just make a separate category.

Wii Game of The Year That Is Neither No More Heroes Or Brawl

Disaster: Day of Crisis is it. The whole thing is a massive parody of pretty much every single action movie ever. You do pretty much everything in this game. You run and jump and rescue people by lifting rubble off them or by cleaning their wounds, you go through some nifty arcade shooting action and you drive your car around by tilting your Wiimote this way and that. (The driving stages were not good at all, but everything else was enjoyable and well-done so I'm willing to overlook it.) This game also gets bonus awesome points because when it was announced I was pretty 50/50 on whether it would be a decent game. I'm glad it was good. The Wii needs more good games. 2009 should be a good year though. Next one's related, because of one thing...

BONUS: Most Attractive Character
Dammit, Ray. Dammit.

Best Worst Game of The Year
You know, I love rhythm games. I especially love Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents, because it's just quirky. So what do you get when you combine Ouendan/EBA and turn it into what is pretty much a dating sim? Well, you get Princess Debut which is about your character who is transported into an alternate dimension where she is a princess and has to find a dance partner for the upcoming ball. Awww. The dancing is actually the dullest part of the whole game as you are forced to grind one song about three times a day for five days before you get another. Not cool at all. There's no challenge, and it's not HARDCORE DIFFICULT like the later levels in Ouendan/EBA But the whole dating thing is really quite fucking awesome. You have your choice of like six different princes and you're pretty much dating all of them at the same time. Holy shit, I'm a princess! Are those accessories I can wear?! Oh my god, Prince Claus is soooo dreamy!
If you do plan on playing this though, do not choose Vincent. The little cocksucker.

Freeware Game of The Year
The thing about horror games nowadays is that they're all too action-oriented (see: Dead Space, Siren: Blood Curse, RE4). What's the point of putting creepy monsters in front of me if I can just beat them to death? And jump scares are not scary. They are shocking. People interchange the definitions of scary and shocking far too often. When I play a horror game, I expect to be terrified. I expect to be afraid of standing near my bed at two in the morning because something will grab me. And then when I'm in bed, I expect to keep glancing around nervously just in case something has silently appeared.
There's like, maybe two games that has made me uneasy and restless. Then there's Irisu Syndrome. You look at it and say, 'Oh hey, this looks like a pretty cute puzzle game', but you can't shake the feeling that something is very, very wrong. This game is the only game that has scared me to the point that I ran out of the fucking room. And because of that, it's a masterpiece.

Retail Game of The Year
Rhythm Tengoku Gold. It's one of those minigame collections, except it requires real rhythm. And of course, since I don't know Japanese, I had the bonus pleasure of trying to figure out what the hell I had to do every stage. Some of them are just plain hard, like the second ping pong stage. RTG is excellent and you should feel totally awful about yourself if you have a DS and flash cart and have not played it.

Well, Happy New Year, folks! Enjoy getting drunk and waking up next to a complete stranger. Remember to steal his/her wallet and send me a nice gift because I know how much you enjoy my blog.

Tiny update.

Dudes and ladies who came to my party - thanks. It was a grand time. Your presents have been put to good use, I promise!

Other news: Flower, Sun and Rain (E) was finally released on ROM sites. Character models look awful. Gameplay will not be everyone's cup of tea, no sir. But this game's wonderful and I'm glad I held out for the English version. There's just fucktons of reading. A full review coming soon, maybe.

OH MY FUCKING GOD

My next update was going to be a, you know, real one. BUT HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

If this is real, I will... oh my god. Yes. YES! OH GOD YES!

We are finally reviewers

So I owed the good Topdrunkee of the K7 SINdicate a No More Heroes review. So here it is. Alternatively, here's the short version:

'No More Heroes is a game by Suda51. It is not as pretentious as Killer7 (EVEN THOUGH I LIKE PRETENTIOUS, BUT NOT TOO PRETENTIOUS) and also does not have as much of a storyline. You are an otaku assassin. You eventually reach number one but not before being cruelly disappointed. Namely because of the shitty graphics.'

... Well, not quite. The actual review was kinder. EIGHT LAUGHING SUDA FACES OUT OF TEN.

I finally have it!

Obtaining No More Heroes though, was a real trial.

I made a picture to illustrate the worldwide release date schedule as it really happened:

You can imagine how I was feeling. So at the beginning of this week (around the 17th), I decided to go check out EB's online store to see if it had been delayed yet again. To my anger, the date stated was for the 27th, next week. Wondering if that was just the date for the online store, I went round to my local EB the next day to confirm this date. Sure enough, it was listed for the 27th.

On this same day (Tuesday), a JB Hi-Fi catalogue finally arrived at our household. My brother was flicking through it when he saw that NMH was being advertised in it for $79. In addition, JB usually puts little notifications next to items that are not available yet, right? Next to NMH, there was no such thing. Naturally, I believed that JB had an early shipment or something.

So on Wednesday, I walked to JB to make my purchase. Turns out they were in fact only putting them on the shelves on the 20th, the actual release date. Fair enough. At least it was definite that they would be releasing it then. So I put down $20 for a preorder there, just to guarantee my copy. Note that I had also preordered at EB at the beginning of Feburary.

In the middle of my tutorial at uni, I received a call from EB saying that my order was in. My reaction: WAT. However, I figured that it was cheaper at JB anyway, seeing as though it cost $99.95 at EB and only $79 at JB. The only thing was seeing if I could transfer my $10 preorder at EB over to another game. But if not, no big deal.

So yesterday, I went and picked up my game from JB. Happiness, joy, etc. Went to EB and they were surprisingly kind. So I transfered my preorder to Brawl and wrangled a 'June-ish' release date from them. Which means you can add another six months on.

So far, NMH is awesome. A full review soon.

Bargain of the Century

I picked up a little piece of nostalgia from Target the other day, the item in question being:

Now, guess how much I paid for this. Go on, guess.

Eighty-six cents. No, seriously. I did a double-take when I saw the price come up on the scanner because Target being Target, I expected it to be about $15 or something. Anyway, this is going to be kept in its packaging until the price skyrockets. Which probably means that it will be buried with me in its original packaging.

The supposed confirmed No More Heroes launch date is the 28th of Feburary. Preorder bonuses? Yes please. Although nothing can top what Japan got.

Incidentally, Happy New Year, everyone. Yes, I realise I am twelve days late. My resolution is to make my handwriting legible. Anyone who was at school with me knows just how important this resolution actually is.

Because I do not speak their language

Oh boy! The EU version of the No More Heroes website is out. For people who cannot read Japanese (ie. me), this is awesome. Also, more (new) wallpapers, coming in January? I hope so!

The shame. I am actually more excited about NMH than I am about MGS4. Now Australia just sits tight and hopes that it doesn't get banned when it gets over here.

On an extremely similar note, another game I am excited about is the new Bionic Commando. Looks like the old school is getting a makeover. Fingers crossed that the old school doesn't become a pile of crap like Final Fight: Streetwise did.