Short and simple this week.
A brief mention (again) for Burnout Paradise: continuing to hammer through the Challenges. I’ve got about 280 (of 350) done at the moment; I’m aiming to polish the rest off and tackle the inevitable DLC before striking it off The List.
Kameo coughed up a couple of Achievements, too. I managed to nail the Forgotten Forest level not once but twice, netting me both the solo and co-op A-Rank achievements. I followed that up with a monthly-record hammering of the Water Temple level – my first level score over 100 million! – and now I’m musing over the upcoming Snow Temple, rated as second-hardest of the bunch. I never liked that level when I was just playing through the game, so the prospect of protecting those fucking walruses as well as my own multipliers gives me The Fear, quite frankly.
Just as well I picked up No More Heroes for the Wii, then. After promising myself I wouldn’t buy it until after I lopped another Wii game off The List, I caved under the immense pressure of a 10%-off deal with DVDcrave. And so, with 18 hours invested in Suda51‘s followup to Killer7, I managed to finish it on Sweet (that is, Easy) mode. And there were bits that delighted, and bits that disappointed; elements of genius, and head-slapping crapulence. This will be a real marmite game I reckon; the overworld is so incredibly clunky that it’s offputting, and the near vertical difficulty leap at the end of the game is a touch nasty, too.
Early levels are fantastic – you can deal massive amounts of death by button-mashing, but the subtlety in the controls expose themselves later on. But it’s style is really quite disturbingly brash – and that’s not a “good” disturbing either. There’s a real lack of coherency; retro plays a big influence, but that clashes with some of the more modern aspects of the production, and Heavenly Star sticks out like a sore fucking thumb. There’s be more written about No More Heroes later, but as of now I’m only half looking forward to playing through it again.
Next week? Kameo: that bastard Snow Temple. Maybe more No More Heroes, on the Mild mode. Maybe Ikaruga on XBLA.