Wii week: No More Heroes 2 and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom arrive

This week's releases sorta snuck up on me as No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom both come out the same week for the Wii.

The first No More Heroes left quite the lasting impression with all its blood, language, violence, and unique visual style. While not many people found the game to be great, it still had a dedicated following - enough to push it past the Wii console and branch out into the 360 and PS3 as No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise. However, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (for now) is only on the Wii, back to the control scheme that makes you feel like a Jedi badass, except with more red. I'll definitely post some impressions of the game soon.

The other game, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, came at a slightly different afterthought. While I left the E3 floor last year with mixed impressions, it wasn't until I developed better skill at Street Fighter IV that I decided to give this a shot. So far, it's definitely like the Vs. series before, with over-the-top super moves and tons of aerial combos, but with a nice glossy finish and all the Japanese voice acting left intact. While there were some aesthetic changes done to the ending screens, and one character omitted late in the game, it's still not a bad fighting game in the end. For those that want a less button-mashing approach, I suggest using the classic controller or an old GameCube controller; the Wii-mote control scheme simplifies the gameplay to an almost no-brainer style of play.

The pre-order bonus for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom was this pack of 8 lenticular cards, which was both snazzy and shady. The cards themselves are very nice, and the pack is only through pre-order. The "shady" part of it is that there are 13 cards in the entire collection, and you can only get the rest through trading with someone else. In a way, I think this is Capcom's devious way of getting TvC players to meet with each other and get some different rivalries going on.

What surprised me was when I leafed through the instruction manual (mind you, just to look a pictures - I'm a "play first, read later" gamer). Pages started to slide right out!

Turns out that someone forgot to staple my instruction manual! The pages look meant to be read as a book, so I doubt it was intentional. Oh well, I'll probably be too busy playing the game to care.