Awarding No More Heroes with Wii Game of the Year would send a message to publishers and developers:

Don't bother fine tuning a game to be all that it can be. Don't waste your time making every aspect of the game fun. Don't worry about tweaking the technical aspects to make it run smoothly. Just come up with an original, clever idea and not only will we buy it, we'll give it awards.

I love the style of No More Heroes. I love the over-the-top craziness of the combat system. I love the idea of having ten unique bosses with their own personalities.

Everything else is terrible.

The city is a complete waste of time. If the game had no roamable city but kept all the other gameplay elements intact, it would be a much stronger title. I feel like half the time I spend playing the game is wasted because of the pointless driving to and from places in the city. The funnest part is driving over trees and lightpoles with the bike, and that's sad.

The jobs are boring and tedious. I don't mind the idea of having jobs, but none of them are very fun. I understand that perhaps the point is that doing a real job isn't fun, so it shouldn't be fun in a game either, but seriously.... Why play a game if it's not fun?

The missions are all pretty much the same. Kill a bunch of guys in a relatively small area within a time limit. This would be okay for two or three of the mission types, but not all of them.

The bosses' personalities aren't developed well enough. The whole process of getting to the boss should reveal something about the boss, yet all we get is a series of tunnels and generic enemies for nearly every boss mission. Thought and creativity was put into the boss characters themselves, and that should be developed much more than it is.

These aspects can be ignored to enjoy the game, so I've heard, but they can't be ignored when deciding whether it deserves an award. I'd give it the Most Wasted Potential Award and send the message that we appreciate good ideas but only when they're executed well.

I actually have high hopes for No More Heroes 2. The foundation is already set, and perhaps the potential can be reached with more time to work on the details. My guess is that the first game was rushed out by the publisher, because there are so many aspects of it that seem incomplete, especially the city and boss missions.

Maybe NMH2 can win best Wii Game of 2009, but it would send a dangerous message if NMH were to win in 2008.