NJ drivers invade No More Heroes

While I was in my 2nd hour or so into No More Heroes last night, I noticed something familiar on 80% of the cars driving around. I went in for a closer look and a few blurry pixels later my suspicion was confirmed. The majority of the cars in No More Heros are New Jersey drivers (or at least their cars were registered there).
That bright yellow bumper is something all too familiar to us in the NY/NJ/Philly area. I spent my first 17 years on earth in North New Jersey (about 40 miles west of New York City) and although the NJ license plate was blue until sometime in the 90′s, it’s change to yellow made NJ drivers stick out like a sore thumb (which is probably a good thing… I know in NYC or Philly if you see a yellow plate chances are they’ll be confused/slow/bad driver. Don’t get me wrong NJ drivers rule the roads of NJ). I’ve been living in Philadelphia for the past 10 years and there’s something about that bright yellow plate that makes you take notice of it every time.

Today I sent an email to the developers of the game, Grasshopper Manufacture, to see if there was a reason behind it. A look around Grasshoppers website didn’t show any clues, it actually made it more confusing. Grasshopper Manufacture are based solely out of Tokyo, Japan. In their news and blog sections of the site they talk about Europe and Asia, but don’t even mention anything about North America (let alone New Jersey).
No More Heroes does take place in the USA. The story is in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, California (3,000 miles from NJ). So, unless a bunch of NJ drivers decided to head to this sleepy little town for some kind of Bruce Springsteen/Bon Jovi re-union event, I’m still very curious as to why they use the actual license plate and not a fictional one… programmers tribute? programmers googled “license plate image” when looking for textures? Who knows… and honestly who really cares. This is just something I’m sure east coast US gamers will indeed notice, what are your theories?









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