Hello, SVGL friends -- long time no see! Busy as always, with some labors of which you'll hopefully see the fruit quite soon; the news pace has been picking up over at Gamasutra, too.
I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of Bayonetta, but Twitter followers know my favorite game in the universe right now is No More Heroes 2. I reviewed it at the AV Club, so those of you who have been waiting for more formalized thoughts from me besides "if you don't love it you probably just shouldn't ever talk to me again" and "no seriously listen this game is fucking brilliant"can read something that's hopefully a little more professional here.
I think that, according to scale, this is the overall highest rating I've ever given any video game that I had to score. No More Heroes had a mindblowing idea with a few weaknesses in its execution; those weaknesses didn't bother me as much as they seemed to bother others, but nonetheless I can appreciate a sequel that provides watertight solutions to previous flaws.
Speaking of which: I passed on Mass Effect 2; it's not the kind of experience that interests me. I don't really care for the "space opera" vein of science fiction, and I'm a little fatigued of dialogue trees. I can praise the first Mass Effect, which I did play at least for a good chunk of time, for how well-done it is, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Fortunately, there is Gamasutra's Chris Remo to offer you some thoughts on the ways Mass Effect 2 aimed to address the weaknesses of the original.
Back to No More Heroes 2. I've heard a lot of people say they feel that the newer, tighter trip to Santa Destroy loses some of the character that the first one had. Over at the Brainy Gamer, Michael Abbott has a thought-provoking articulation of this point of view. The perspective raises a couple questions for me.
I've always praised creative spirit over technical execution, maybe more than a professional reviewer ought. I'd always prefer a risky, high-impact experience with a lot of rough edges to a polished, fluid one that doesn't really shake the paradigm or feel artistic. I like distinctive auteurs, and Grasshopper's Suda51 is on my very short list.
I wonder if we've come to associate creativity with visible flaws? Does something with clumsy bits in it seem scrappier or nobler? Is there really a loss of "character" visible when something's streamlined or polished? Do we need to see the creator's errors to understand their vision and spirit?
One of the reasons I'm such a big fan of Hideo Kojima's is his self-awareness. He knows his cutscenes are too long and that his sense of humor is weird, and he knows how critics feel about it. Yet he won't change -- in fact, much of the time in Metal Gear Solid 4, the elements for which his direction is most often criticized are exaggerated in a way that feels intentional. Therefore, Kojima's work is a dialogue between himself and the players. They have a sense of "knowing" him because they know how he expresses himself in games.
Suda51 also has a distinctive identity, and a pattern of being behind games that are beloved for their concepts but encounter critical difficulty because of execution issues. Did we come to associate those design shortfalls with the "identity" of the creator? Because critics who like his work found themselves having to champion its "character," flaws and all, could it be that in a well-executed No More Heroes game, we no longer recognize the visionary?
When an offbeat independent band suddenly produces an album that's too polished, fans are likely to say they prefer the older, more distinctive material because it had more character. Same principle at work here?
For what it's worth, I am not on the side of the fence that sees any kind of character loss in No More Heroes 2. As I said in the comments on Brainy Gamer, I really think the issue is simply that something can only be new once, and it won't feel the same the second time.
