System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: Ubisoft

Reviewer’s rating: **

ESRB rating: Mature

Game type: Third-person action

Kind of like: “Killer 7” with swords instead of guns.

Best feature: A lot of thought seems to have been put into the strange and disturbed bosses you have to fight.

Worst feature: Running around the city of Santa Destroy to earn money ranks pretty low on the list of things we like to do.

The bottom line: “No More Heroes” offers brutal gameplay, gallons of blood and plenty of weird enemies to fight.

As the title suggests, there are no heroes here. The main character, Travis Touchdown, is about as far from seeming heroic as you can get. That is, except for the cool, laserlike “beam katana” he carries. His mission is simply to be known as the best fighter in the land. To do that, he must kill the 10 people currently said to be better than he is.

The good news is that the action, while unbelievably violent, can be pretty fun and intense. Fighting is normally done by pressing the A button on the Wiimote. A successful series of hits will cause an icon to appear on the screen, telling you to swing the Wiimote in a certain direction. If you do, Travis will perform a gory finishing move.

The bad news, however, is that the city of Santa Destroy is really boring. This is no “Grand Theft Auto.” The “between-boss” jobs you might do include minigames involving mowing lawns or carrying coconuts. Perhaps it’s supposed to seem ironic, but it doesn’t work.

As a character, Travis is rude but not funny; detached but not cool. The enemies are much more interesting.