A screenshot from No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle.
To save your game in the Wii-exclusive No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle one must direct his or her character-a foul-mouthed punk named Travis Touchdown-into a bathroom where he peels off his pants, sits on a toilet, and empties his bowels.
This is just one of countless scenes intended to shock and amuse players in Ubisoft's new revenge-driven actioner, a game that features scores of shameless crotch, boob, and butt shots and a relentless flow of crass sexual dialogue.
And it's a shame, because if you scrub away the juvenile drivel you'll find a fun little game underneath. The gory combat is both simple and satisfying, and long-time video game fans will appreciate the respect paid to the medium's past via loads of retro, 8-bit-era mini-games.
But as entertaining as these elements are, No More Heroes 2 is irreparably tarnished by tepid writing and puerile gags that aren't much more clever than what you might find scrawled on the wall of a bathroom stall at a particularly dingy gas station.
Take, for example, the fact that the battery meter for our energy sword is the shape of rubber-sheathed penis that deflates as the charge decreases. Or how, in order to recharge it, we have to shake the Wii remote in a manner that clearly evokes masturbation.
But that's highbrow humour compared to other "jokes."
Whenever a new mini-game is unlocked the message "It's Whore Time!" pops up on screen, followed by the activity's name; often a crude double entendre like "Man the Meat" or "Lay the Pipe."
And the game's characters are little more than fountains from which boorish sexual innuendo springs forth. Some typical lines: "I like her better when she's horny" and "I feel like a pervy teacher in a porn."
It feels as though the dialogue was written with 14-year-old boys in mind. Actually, strike that. It feels like it was written by a 14-year-old boy.
After spending about five hours playing I could bear no more. I popped the disc out of my Wii and intend never to re-insert it.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for a few good sex jokes now and then, but the dirty humour on display here is less Superbad and more, well, just super bad. Dirty can be funny, but there needs to be something subtle, clever, and intelligent beneath, and No More Heroes 2's wit is wholly lacking these three traits.
Titles like this have effectively dulled any shock or frustration I might feel that non-gamers still view the medium as something intended for pubescent boys. Who can blame them when a supposedly "mature" game seems targeted directly at these children?
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is, despite strong play mechanics and nostalgia inducing mini-games, a step backward for video games. Its gratuitous, mindlessly vulgar, and wholly unsophisticated humour is simply intolerable. I'm shocked that anyone over the age of 16 would even sign off on it.
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