No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Wii

Desperate Struggle takes place three years after the events of the first game. And although Travis was ranked on top of the assassins' list the last time we saw him, due to some serious events (ones in which Ubisoft isn’t talking about) he’s bumped down to Rank 51 (pun intended) and is now not only back on the path to reaching the top, but he’s out for revenge. And knowing Travis, he’s going to lay a path of destruction on his way back up the ladder.

The combat formula is quite similar to the original, and Travis still uses his trusty beam katanas to slice and dice his opponents into bloody messes – with a few f-bombs and other colorful taunts along the way. Just like the first game, after knocking an enemy's health down far enough, players can pull off a context-sensitive finishing move by jerking the Wiimote and nunchuck in certain directions. These enter into even more over-the-top wrestling finishers that completely annihilate adversaries. However, Travis has a new trick up his sleeve, and can dual wield katanas for even more damage. By pressing the 1 button on the Wiimote, you can toggle between using one or two katanas. However, unless you’re a purist, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t always want to dual wield, and secondly, it’s awkward to completely shift your hand to press the 1 button while you’re playing.

One major gripe with the first game was the open-world motorcycle events that took you from point A to point B. The producer told me that while they might not completely be out of the game, the team at Grasshopper have minimized them enough to keep the action flowing. Phew!

Another fan favorite from the original will be the money earning minigames, and this time Grasshopper decided to make them all classic 8-bit games. Unfortunately they’re keeping quiet on what these games will be. Hopefully more will be revealed at next month’s Tokyo Game Show.

All-in-all, Desperate Struggle is shaping up to be a nice sequel. With Travis starting at the lowly 51th level, Grasshopper promises more boss battles and enemies to destroy. If they can keep the boring open world mess from the first title to a minimum and keep Travis kicking ass – Desperate Struggle will be a must play. And fortunately, there’s not a long wait since Ubisoft divulged today that No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle will be hitting the Wii in January 2010. We’ll have much more on No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle in our video interview landing on G4tv.com next week.