No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Gaming might not have found its Orson Welles, but it most definitely has found its Quentin Tarantino in Suda51. Imagine every gaming style, stereotype, problem, or ass-kicking moment thrown into a blender, and you end up with one of the greatest videogame sendups in history.

Of course, this was all true in the first No More Heroes game as well. After playing the first one, many people (myself included) wondered exactly how a sequel could be made from it. As it turns out, Desperate Struggle is just as successful as the first because of its willingness to go completely off the deep end to make a point.

In case you haven't played the first No More Heroes (and if you haven't, why haven't you yet?!), here's how the game works. You play as Travis Touchdown, a foul-mouthed Otaku douchebag who has unwittingly stumbled into the world of Assassin battle rankings, fighting his way to the top. No More Heroes ended with Travis being ranked number one, although still kind of a loser.

Desperate Struggle makes no pretense of having any continuity. Basically, because Travis got lazy, he's fallen from top spot and has to fight his way up again. That's it. There's no grand plot here.

That's because, more than anything, No More Heroes is a game about videogaming, and is less about what happens than what all of its crazy images mean. The Quentin Tarantino reference wasn't just a reference to the ultraviolence of the two directors – No More Heroes 2 is the closest that videogaming will get to the kind of self-referential grindhouse aesthetic that Tarantino's made his millions from. Gone from the first game is the somewhat tedious overworld, and while some may decry this (as it really helped to sell the whole "killing as an escape from dreariness" aspect of the first game), it's been replaced with something even better. All of the side jobs are presented as hilarious 8-bit style minigames. My personal favourites would have to be Bug Out! and Coconut Grabber, though all of them are entertaining in one way or another (even Man the Meat, a game where you hold A… and then release it).

The 8-bit games aren't just fun time wasters though. Like all of the other parts of the game, they're designed to make sure that the player is aware that No More Heroes is aware that it's a videogame. Although this is as true of the first game as it is here, Travis isn't a particularly interesting character – he's more interested in spouting off Bruce Campbell-esque one-liners than actually being in the same universe as "deep." Travis is designed to almost be an indictment of the player, especially if the player is, indeed, a self-described "hardcore" gamer.

Travis is a sad, lonely guy. When he kills (in extremely over-the-top fashion, with blood spurting everywhere a la Kill Bill Vol. 1), it's so cartoony that it's clear that this is what videogaming is to Travis. His lightsaber… erm… "beam katana" blatently stands in as a symbol of his phallus – you have to simulate masturbation to recharge its energy, and killing enemies in a row raises Travis' "ecstasy" meter. This is clearly a loving, yet pointed commentary on the almost pornographic connection between violence and sex (and sexuality) in the traditional hardcore gamer.

Even in the cutscenes, this element of the game is further satirized. A recurring cutscene with a girl in a skimpy outfit utilizes the male gaze effect to quite literally frame the shot so that only her breasts and legs are visible. Sophie, the girl that Travis lusts after, is handled in much the same fashion.

Although the game does include two other playable characters (Shinobu and Henry), it's just for a stage or two, and they're only used to highlight different aspects of gaming culture. I won't go too far into this aspect of the game, and will instead point you towards Destructoid's flawed, but interesting examination of the game here. 

Make no mistake: this is a great game. It criticizes elements of gaming by utilizing those elements in extremely exaggerated fashion, placing the game squarely in the modernist tradition of art. While there a few quibbles – namely, that a few of the boss fights aren't all that memorable, and this sense that Suda's maybe getting away with a lack of polish here and there because it's so well-built into his critique (the mind-numbingly repeated lines from enemies comes to mind. If I hear "Did you get your jollies?" one more time…). But these are minor quibbles for what could end up being one of the games of the year come the end of 2010. Suda51 has cemented himself as not only one of the most important game directors of all time, but also one of modern art's most valued voices.