Though technically lacking, the game’s stylish humor is its saving grace.

Roger Ebert may not consider video games an art form, but he can’t deny their identity as a highly defined subculture of contemporary society. That explains why the Japanese director Suda 51, best known for the cell-shaded mind trip “Killer 7,” had the courage to release “No More Heroes,” an incredibly self-deprecating look at the video game crowd.

The player assumes control of Travis Touchdown, a cocky young otaku, otherwise known outside of Japan as a hopelessly obsessed anime fan. Armed with his trusty beam katana (think a florescent light tube that behaves like a light saber) won in an Internet auction, and a rather comic lust for a bit of the old ultra-violence, Travis fights and kills a professional assassin and is promptly certified by the characteristically sultry Sylvia Christel, an agent of the United Assassins Association, as the 11th best hit man.

The premise of the game is satisfyingly simple: Become the number one killer in the country by defeating the top 10 located throughout Santa Destroy, Calif., for no better reasons than professional supremacy. Naturally, there are other advantages to being number one, such as the opportunity to sleep with Christel, who takes every opportunity to goad the juvenile Travis and the gaming crowd at large with vaguely sexual advances.

To challenge and move up the “Pac Man” leader board (literally) of professional killers, Travis must generate entrance fees by working a series of odd jobs that would shame a boy scout in their nobility. In several oddly satisfying mini games, Travis picks up litter, cleans up graffiti, and rescues stray kittens among other legit enterprises.

Conversely, these jobs unlock UAA contracts, giving Travis the opportunity to hack and slash to his heart’s content through an endless parade of masked and anonymous “Kill Bill”-esque sword fodder as an alternate source of income.

The combat is truly where the game shines. Suda 51 graciously sidestepped the obvious temptation of utilizing the Wii remote for simple light wand sword fighting, instead opting for a tried-and-true, no-nonsense button combination. The Wii’s motion feature is used primarily in the comically over-the-top finishing moves, as well as Travis’ hand-to-hand grapples, which unsurprisingly are based entirely on professional wrestling moves.

The boss battles themselves, however, are almost sure to infuriate seasoned gamers, as they are slowly but surely conquered by waiting for the end of your opponent’s combo and promptly attacking, with few exceptions to the rule.

Santa Destroy itself is also an incredibly bland over-world, with absolutely nothing to offer the explorative gamer, save the occasional T-shirt found by kicking dumpsters. The variety of side missions is a bit wanting at times, tempting gamers to simply replay the highest paying hit over and over to generate the increasingly massive boss entry fees.

When driving through town, Travis’ motorcycle handles like a rocket-powered shopping cart, a point perhaps not lost on the developers, who thankfully omitted any driving scenario requiring the least bit of precision.

Though technically lacking, the game’s stylish humor is its saving grace. The bosses more or less resemble a lineup of cartoonish American stereotypes, such as the singing cowboy, the blaxploitation samurai, and the arrogant blonde superhero that naturally uses a codpiece-mounted laser to dispatch foes.

The hilariously unnecessary cut scenes also deliver the very same poorly translated one-line clunkers so ubiquitous in all Americanized versions of Japanese imports, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the real target of the game’s ridicule is American video game culture itself.

At nearly every level, the game seems to parody titles both past and present, from the “Grand Theft Auto” interface in free roaming to a retro 8-bit 2-D space shooter mini-game.

The game also goes to great lengths to poke fun at the stereotype of video gamers themselves. When Travis is not spending his money on luchador videos and buying his way into fights with the top assassins, he can always drop cash on new threads for himself.

The game features a whole array of popped collars, aviator glasses, pre-shredded jeans, faux-punk belts and literally hundreds of ironic T-shirts to keep Travis at the “height” of fashion.

The hilariously juvenile humor coupled with below-average game play almost suggests the whole game itself is one big entertaining joke on the player. In the world of modern gaming, Suda 51 exclaims very clearly that there are no more heroes left to look up to.

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