I never expected something like this to happen. It all started normally enough, buying a game off the internet for memories sake, but then it turned into a normal gamer’s worst nightmare.
It all started, with buying one of my favourite games of all time; No More Heroes on the Nintendo Wii. I had lost my copy of the game in an accident earlier in my lifetime, so I was hyped as hell to get a new copy. But while I was surfing Amazon, a pop-up came onto my screen.
It was offering a No More Heroes game for only £10. I was shocked. Why would somebody charge a tenner for a game that’s worth at least £20? But it seemed genuine enough, but after looking at it for a while, I decided to reject it, purely because I didn’t believe somebody would charge so little for such a good game.
About a week later, the game came in the post.
I immediately saw that I was wise not to buy it straight off. The cover had been removed from the box, with only a crude sticker with ‘NMH’ written on it. And I also noticed that the actual game was on a CD-ROM rather than the actual disc. But I relaxed, and figured, “What’s the worst that could happen?”, and I slotted the disc into my computer.
The second it started, I knew it was a bootleg. After I selected my difficulty level, instead of playing the starting cutscene, I saw Travis getting stabbed violently by Henry, you know, the final boss. But rather than cutting Travis’ head off or something like that, Henry took out a long Irish hunting knife that bore a resemblance to the one hanging on the wall above my dining table and mutilated Travis’ body to the point of it being completely unrecognisable.
His red jacket had been torn and the shreds were stuffed in his mouth. His left arm had about seven deep scratches across it, staining the tarmac of the motel parking space, and all that remained of his right arm was a few shreds of flesh and a bleeding stump. But his face was the real spectacle.
It looked as tough it had been run through a paper shredder. It had been sliced open in what looked like fifty places. What little hair that still clung to the torn, bleeding scalp was covered in blood, and both eyes had been gouged out.
All this made me feel sick, but it also made me curious. What had Travis done that upset his brother so much? As I wondered, I found I could move Henry with my keyboard. I get to play as Henry! Despite what I had just seen, I was excited as all hell. What new stuff would I be able to do with him?
The game progressed like it normally would after that madness, until I managed to beat Death Metal, the first boss. Henry mutilated Death Metal the same way as he did Travis, but after he had finished him, he turned to look behind him to see Sylvia, his wife(Spoilers),holding a magnum, next to the two de-contamination guys, both holding machine guns. The trio pointed their guns at Henry, and open fired.
It seemed that Henry was trying to jump out of the way in ten different directions. He was almost torn in half by the bullets, and what was left of his body was riddled in holes. It all looked so real, I could almost smell the gunpowder.
But as he lay dying, Henry let out a laugh, identical to the one that sounded in Magus’ theme tune in Chrono Trigger. He stood back up again, laughed again, and spat what must have been acid at Sylvia and the two officers. Their faces seemed to melt as they screamed in a very unnerving manner. Henry the looked right at the screen and muttered, “You’re next, you son of a bitch.”
Since then, I have never tried to get the game since, and when the second game came out, I simply remembered how Henry lay after he eventually died, a demonic smile on his face…
''Written by Rmatth2''