The Mammon Philosophy

A hallmark of the Metroid Prime series — okay, hold on. I feel weird saying that a subset series that only started one console generation ago, despite being built on a storied franchise, already has its own hallmarks. It’d be like saying that a key component of Mario games is Goomba-stomping after only the first three titles. And yet, core gamers will note that I was very upset when I learned that the Goombas of Super Mario World could not be stomped, only flipped over and kicked around like common Troopas. Interesting how quickly we the gamers will adapt to new technologies or motifs, even in spite of our haranguement of them on message boards.

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I’m starting with the only development in No More Heroes that actually matters to the continuation of game design: Goichi Suda solves the problem of how best to control sword-swinging with the Wii remote by effectively saying, “screw it!” and assigning it to the A button. This leaves the player free to waggle for other activities, such as winning melees against enemies or back-flipping scorpions into a bucket, while simultaneously making elaborate attack combos seem more natural. I think there’s something of the uncanny valley in the level of near-reality the Wii achieves; if the hand motion is merely close instead of exact in its on-screen replication, the player feels ripped off and not in control. Whipping my arm around while Link went “hoo-hah-yah!” in Twilight Princess certainly made me feel like a twat, and trying to match the exacting demands of katana battling in Red Steel was simply frustrating, though perhaps not as much as the rest of the game. Likewise, the nunchuk is used to best effect as not only the placeholder for a joystick and some extra buttons, but also as the player’s left hand, particularly noticeable when using wrestling moves — and without the “forward shove” motion that so rarely seems to work properly in other games.

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