Via N’Grai Croal
First off, an argument that No More Heroes is not punk and that many people are getting wrong just what it’s subverting. The article does get completely spoilery, but it does announce when it switches to spoilers.
From that article there’s a link to a Destructiod article on the meaning of No More Heroes. There’s a few big spoilers, starting at the massively spoilery video. Before that there’s more vague spoilers.
The entire world is based around what Travis has interest in, there is literally nothing else. What is Travis interested in? What most young male gamers are: obsessively collecting objects (in this case clothes and models), killing bad guys, movies, the gym, sports and gorgeous
women. If it doesn’t have to do with these things then it isn’t important to Travis and it doesn’t deserve anything more then an ugly gray building. Santa Destroy is a literal recreation of the self-centered world of a 20-something male and a comment on how this gaming generation views what is important in life. The inanity of the side quests throughout the game only emphasize this by creating a world that is both boring and uninteresting outside of Travis’ dream life.
Both articles agree that the protagonist, Travis Touchdown, is a stand-in for the player, specifically a stereotypical male game, to a greater degree than in most games. The game definitely critiques that mindset, but the exact nature of that critique is apparently pretty complicated (but not incoherant).
Anyways, I haven’t played the game so I can’t add any insights. I just thought they were neat articles.
Recent Comments