When I first heard thatNo More Heroeswas coming to the PS3/360, I was totally shocked. Porting a two-year-old Wii game to HD consoles? It’s ludicrous, unheard of, and potentially brilliant. While I’m not totally convinced thatNMHwill be better for the swap between motion controls andHD graphics, I still want the game to sell well on the PS3/360. If this port goes on to outsell the 500,000-700,000 copies that the Wii original sold worldwide, I’d be ecstatic.
Now, before you going calling me a Wii-hating HD fanboy, hold your horses. Take another look at the title of this post. Look at a few of my other blogs. Though I’m not the biggest fan of Nintendo of America, the Wii is actually my favorite console of this generation so far.
So, if I like the Wii so much, why am I excited thatNMHis “defecting” to high definition consoles? Well, because from where I stand, the success of the game on the PS3/360 could signal the final victory for the “Wii philosophy,” which is the reason I like the Wii so much in the first place.
Hit the jump and I’ll explain.
Okay, so what’s the “Wii philosophy” that I’m talking about? Well, from my perspective, it’s about four things — the four things that really separate the Wii from the PS3/360:
- Motion controls (and the mainstream-accessible games that utilize them);
Low-priced console and games;
Personalized avatar creation;
4) Low-budget, “punk rock” games.
The PS3 and 360 have already adopted three out of four of these three ideas. Both the PS3 and the 360 will have motion controllers next year. Both have seen $200-$300 price drops since they first launched. Both have their own avatar creation systems. There’s just one part of the Wii’s appeal that they still lack.
Which brings us to No More Heroes.
The tale ofNo More Heroesis a rags-to-riches success story of one of the industry’s biggest outsiders, and of hardcore gaming on a console that many said was just for kids and old people. It also may be the pinnacle of modern “punk rock” gaming. By “punk,” I mean the combination of an intense enthusiasm for expressing ideas that overcomes any prioritization of profit. For instance, Blind Lemon Jefferson didn’t know that he’d ever become world-famous for singing on his porch about feeling miserable. The Ramones probably never guessed that four ugly guys with bad haircuts who can barely play their instruments would go on to be one of the most popular rock groups on the planet. NWA rapped about being “gangsta” long before anyone ever turned a profit from it. These are just three of the original “punk rockers.” These are the guys that put themselves out there with no reason to believe they could succeed, with little to no money to back them up. They didn’t do what they did because they thought they’d get rich and famous; they did it because they meant it.
For a game developer, it’s the same thing. To be punk rock, they have to be so overwhelmed with excitement over the game they’re working on that they can’t even see anything other than their creative vision. Developers with this attitude almost always make “flawed” games, but that’s usually because of the tunnel vision that comes from following your creative path with total abandon. The path also blinds you to whether what you’re doing is going to make you any money, or if you have the money to make the game in the first place. Ken Levine, Shigesato Itoi, Will Wright, Keita Takahashi, Tim Schafer, and, of course, Suda 51 are all examples of game developers that have made games under these conditions, and have at least one truly punk rock game under their belt.
For me, though,No More Heroesis the epitome of all that, at least for games in this “era.” Like The Ramones,No More Heroesisn’t going to win anyone over with its good looks. About half the time,No More Heroeslooks like a Dreamcast game, something that is traditionally a guaranteed death sentence for sales (note: this was also true for actual Dreamcast games).No More Heroesalso features an open world that is totally barren and uneventful, which works in stark contrast to the stuff found in big sellers like theGTAseries. More so,No More Heroesstars one of the least conventional game protagonists of all time: a skinny, horny, lonely, videogame/anime-loving young man who lives with alone with his cat. The only messages on his answering machine are from mean-spirited employers, or the video store that he owes money to for un-returned porno tapes.
Couple all that with the amount of truly “inappropriate,” borderline insane content packed in the game, and you have a package that’s about as punk rock as it gets. I could get into detail, but I better stop myself now, as I could easily go on and on about the game for pages and pages. If you want to know more, though, check out one of themanywell-written posts hereon Dtoidthat focus on the game. It’s really the kind of game that people like to write about just as much as they like to play.
So yeah,No More Heroeswas one of the first, and best, punk rock games to hit the Wii. It has outsold other games with much higher budgets and bigger publishers (Dead Space ExtractionandThe Conduit, for example) without online play, mainstream-friendly controls, or proven successful tropes like zombies, World War II, or car theft. It also outsold every other game Suda 51 ever produced, including several games for the ever-popular PS1 and PS2. With the success ofNMHcame many other punk rock Wii exclusives: games likeMuramasa: The Demon Blade,Mushroom Men,MadWorld,Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop,House of the Dead: Overkill,Little King’s Story,A Boy and His Blob, theBit.Tripseries, and many others. Some of them made money, and some of them didn’t, but that doesn’t even really matter. The point is that they still were permitted to come into existence, and that’s something that could have only happened on the Wii.
Sadly, the PS3/360 just don’t have as many games of this type in their console libraries.Metal Gear Solid 4certainly has its moments, as do download-only titles likeNoby Noby Boy,Castle CrashersandBraid, but even they are pretty conventional when compared to games likeMadWorldandNo More Heroes. PS3/360 games just cost a lot more to make than Wii games — by some reckoning, three to five times more. Publishers can’t take as many punk rock risks on the high-def consoles; one failed HD game could put them out of business. They have to play it safe by pleasing the lowest common denominator with space marines and Hollywood-style set pieces, or else they just won’t survive.
At least, that’s what I used to think before I saw screenshots ofNo More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradiseon the PS3/360. The game has made me start to think that non-conventional, disc-based games might be able to make it in the HD world.
Though the game definitely isn’t a straight port, the changes made to the graphics surely look low-budget. Of course the jaggies are gone, and there seems to be a shiny filter on everything now, but both are probably due to work being done by the PS3/360 hardware, and they likely didn’t cost the developers anything extra to implement. Other than that, Travis’s coat now hasrealwrinkles, and… yeah, that’s it. That’s all I see for visual improvements inNo More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise— filters, resolution, and coat wrinkles. Coat wrinkles and resolution aside, I actually thinkNo More Heroes 2: Desperate Strugglelooks a little more expensive thanNo More Heroes HD. Just take a look at this comparison shot and see for yourself (in case you can’t tell, the Wii game is on the left) .
Thing is, that’s allgoodnews. That’s a sign that a developer can make a game for the PS3/360 that essentially costs as much to make as a low-budget Wii game, and still still find a publisher for it (well, maybe). That’s a sign that not every PS3/360 game has to have online play or look likeUncharted 2orResident Evil 5in order to get published.
That is, of course, ifNo More Heroes HDactually sells.
Best case scenario,No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradisemakes good money on the PS3/360, and developers think to make low-budget up-ports of other punk rock Wii games. These up-ports also make money, so from there, developers actually start makingoriginalpunk rock games for the PS3/360. Not PSN/XLBA games, I’m talking about real retail games; games that aren’t about criminals/soldiers/space marines/strippers/bounty hunters. I’m talking about retail games that aren’t all firmly embedded in the uncanny valley. When was the last time you saw a game like that on the PS3/360? (And no,3D Dot Heroesdoesn’t count. Not until I play it, anyway.)
Sure, if punk rock gaming spreads across all consoles, the Wii console will be at a loss for the diminished number of exclusives. In the ways that count, that’s still a success for the console. It’s like they say in politics: winning the election is meaningless if you don’t get the other party to start doing things your way. To convert the PS3/360 into HD Wii clones is the real sign that the console has “won” the console war.” Sales are just a means to that end.
