No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle

Desperate Struggle, the sequel to the early Wii release No More Heroes, by Suda 51, is very much an improvement over the original. Here is my review:

Plot- Continuing three years after the events of the last game, Travis Touchdown retired after reaching Rank 1 in the United Assassins Association, but is now back after being challenged by the UAA to take on the 51 assassins now standing in his way. As incentive, the number one assassin murders Travis’ friend Bishop, making Travis very determined now to fight to the top. Along the way former assassin Shinobu and his half brother Henry show up to help, whether Travis wants it or not. Included in this round of assassins are Charlie, a football star who also has a giant robot; Million Gunman, a revolver toting millonaire (of course); Margaret, a gothic lolita sniper/scythe wielding ghost (with easily one of the catchiest songs of the soundtrack); and also the return of previous assassins Dr. Shake and Destroyman, who have both been rebuilt after their previous fights in the last game. And others. Suda 51′s twisted humour and love of pro-wrestling are back, adding to the flavor.

Gameplay- Elements from the last game were either removed or improved, making this game very enjoyable. Gone is the sandbox world that you could spend a lot of time simply getting lost, now Travis can fast travel from location to location. The fighting controls are more fluid, and there are new combos that he can use. When playing as Shinobu and Henry, the controls are a bit different, meaning that you may not enjoy their levels as much as when Travis is in control, but admittedly there is only one short segment where you get to play as Henry, and it is barely relevant to the game. The side job minigames are back, but this time they are all modeled after old fashioned games, and they are definitely challenging at times. Since there is no overworld there is also less opportunities to use Travis’ bike, a shame since there could have been more that was done with it. The three settings, Sweet, Mild, and Bitter, are easy, difficult, and challenging, in that order. Upon trying easy and then moving up to Mild (Bitter is unlocked after beating the game) there is a great increase on the difficulty curve. Veterans of the first game should have no trouble with Mild, but there are a few boss fights that will take multiple tries. Now Travis can switch weapons mid-fight, which is very useful, since I find certain katana work better against various enemies.

Music and Visuals- This game has a very catchy soundtrack, as mentioned above my personal favorite is Margaret’s song, found here there is also remixed songs from the previous games as well as some other great music. The game itself has some of the greatest graphics on the Wii, although for laughs the minigames all look like they came from the SNES era. Character design is one of this games’ strong points, since every single boss has their own quirks, personality, and genre that they pull from. Travis can customize his outfit, in his trademark shades jeans, and jacket. If you listen carefully, there is even a soundbyte or two that seem to be from Killer 7, Suda 51′s precursor to No More Heroes that came out on the GameCube.

Overall- Desperate Struggle is fun, challenging, hilarious, rude, and awesome. A satisfying sequel, sadly Suda 51 announced that Travis will not be returning, although I think he would make an awesome addition to the roster of the next Smash Brothers. The game lives up to its name and the hype, and is a great addition to any game collection, and is a definite star for the Wii so early in the year. For XBox and PS3 owners, you can sample the first game as it gets a port (soonish) but I note that again Nintendo grabs a very good game first before the other two (others include Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7). For me the playtime was roughly ten hours, although that could take less or more time based on difficulty or the need to collect the games multiple little asthetics.

Firefox Personas

Persona?

No! Not that, the Firefox add-on!

In the latest update for you Firefox users out there, there’s a magical little something called Personas. What are they? In short they are a background template for Firefox, giving a customizable look to your browsing experience. You can check it out at www.getpersonas.com which is a very simple process, as long as you have the latest update (warning, if you do not have the update it will crash Firefox). Browsing their collection of user made personas is easy, mouse over the sample to ‘try it’ and if you enjoy it you can simply add it as your current persona.

I like it because it is colorful and personal, with the option of making your own if you can’t find any. Sure this is only an aesthetic addition to your browser, but it doesn’t hurt to try it out. As soon as it installs and Firefox restarts you too will be looking at a fresh new browser.

With the create your own option, you have to supply a jpg or png image that fits the header, and another for the footer, but past that it does all the work for you. In my opinion, most designs work to any degree, but shades like purple or orange can stand out too much… the one thing to remember is that any buttons or toolbars that you have will not change color or position, so it can be hard adjusting to this right away.

Short update this time, only because I wanted to get word of this out, nothing really new on my end. More to come soon though.
-Minkus

Movie Reviews: Double Feature

This holiday season had two films that I went to see; Sherlock Holmes, directed by Guy Ritchie, and Avatar, directed by James Cameron.

Ritchie has directed several amazing films like Snatch and RocknRolla, and Sherlock Holmes was an interesting choice for him. Starring Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. as Watson and Holmes respectively, this movie is a great look at the Holmes mythos that really hasn’t been touched in a while. One thing that is very clear is that this is no longer just the Holmes who looks at the facts and solves the case from his apartment, but now Holmes is a judo expert who takes the scientific method and hangs himself with it (don’t try that at home). The plot revolves around the escape of Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) who Holmes had a big hand in bringing to justice. Blackwood goes about on a crime spree while Holmes’ more direct approach to mystery solving puts him right on his tale. This film is great on its own, but also is filled with plot hooks for sequels, most importantly Proff. Moriarty, who makes an appearance. This action Holmes may be different if you wanted the cool calculating presence from the original novels, but this version makes a solid impression on the Holmes character. Filled with action and humor, I recommend Sherlock Holmes, but be warned this is no Study in Scarlett.

Avatar (not the last Airbender) by James Cameron (director of Titanic) in 3D (where available) is the story of a wheelchair bound ex-marine who gets sent to a hostile planet environment where atmosphere itself is toxic, so that he can run around in an alien hybrid using some fancy super science that was meant for his brother, who died before the story begins but the DNA between is close enough (right?). Avatar is way better than that just sounded. Look past the terribly cliche story of him learning the ways of the People (or Navi, if you will) or the eco-unfriendly bigwig running the place who ignores the research conducted by the brilliant scientist he hired to study the planet (there’s stupid, and then there’s the stupid he gets because the plot demands it) and you get an amazing story of a guy who can’t use his legs, essentially piloting a seven foot tall blue monkey who rides around on dragons and destroys helicopters. This movie is AWESOME.

This film isn’t just all cliche and awesome fight scenes though, it actually surprised me a few times as the overall story is concerned. The main character Jake (Sam Worthington) is of course, not the super scientist his brother was, so the only reason he gets an avatar is because his DNA works with it. The movie has an early tell where the nerdy Joel Moore (Dodgeball, Bones) is of course upset that someone who is not a super scientist gets a free avatar when he spent his post-post graduate studies working towards it. The early animosity between the two actually gets mention later in the film as being resolved; something although trivial, I was really surprised by, since I either expected Joel to take part in betraying Jake somehow, or simply the movie forgetting about it and moving on. Thank you movie, for remembering to tell me what happened to that early plot point.

In comes Stephen Lang (Public Enemies, Gods and Generals) as the real villain, the Colonel in charge of the mercenary unit protecting the humans and harassing everything else on the planet. I may have just been rooting for him the entire time, but that doesn’t stop the fact that he’s a much more believable villain than the brainless CEO he works for. He takes a major part towards the end of the film, bringing the heavy firepower against the primitive tech of the Navi.

Avatar (in 3D or otherwise) is a great looking movie with good writing (if not predictable at times) and definitely a movie to see while its in theaters. It’s a bit long, almost three hours, but still a great chance to see a good quality film. It’s been in the works since ’94, and I recommend giving it a try.

-Minkus

DM Ramblings: D&D vs. DarkHeresy

I started my pencil and paper gaming ways with D&D, specifically 3.5, which I stick to like glue. 4th edition can wait, since everyone I know still enjoys the old ways. Recently though I picked up Dark Heresy, a d100 system based off of the Warhammer 40K universe. Now the two systems thematically are worlds apart, but the systems themselves are very different. Which is why I’ve decided to say a few words on the matter, giving a good reason why I enjoy both systems.

Dungeons and Dragons is what everyone agrees on as the standard and most popular pen and paper RPG. It is the defining d20 system, even with its multiple incarnations. I can start with that. I love the 3.5 rules, though I’m sure people could point out its little problems. Still when you need three books at least to play, it would take a miracle to make me burn a hole in my pocket to upgrade, when I hear that they didn’t even release the stats for all of the classes yet. I keep seeing titles like Monster Manual 2 and groan. Not until they bring back the dinosaurs (literally) would I look at these new books. D&D has therefore got a massive fanbase of people who don’t play by the same rules, because of so many rule-changes over the years. I’m sure it wouldn’t take long to learn (or unlearn) old/new rules, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover. I understand the need for changes or new additions, but hopefully there won’t be a constant flow of new books to worry about.

Playing 3.5 is fun, and a blast to DM for. It’s a system that has so much out there to use that I never would run out of ideas for campaigns. The d20 system uses a fair number of different dice, from the d4 to the d12. Here all characters have a race, class, and alignment, plus all of their stats that follow. Skill points and magic levels are terms that should be very familiar to D&D players, (don’t talk to me about psionics that is just confusing) and there’s plenty more that I’m just skipping over for now.

Dark Heresy (and Rogue Trader) uses the d100 system, which only needs two dice, the d10 and d100 (also called the percentage die, but there are actual 100 sided dice). All characters are human, but have a home planet, and a class (alignment is sketchy, but there are certain Traits that define them better). Skills have to be trained, and experience plays part of a buy system that helps with character creation. Levels are now ranks, which also adds branches to a tech tree system of leveling up. This system is infamous for its critical damage tables, which are several pages of detailed effects of what can happen to wounded characters. Also there is only 1 book that you need if you want to start playing.

On the DM side, working with these systems has a lot to offer on both sides. For the main issue its what setting would you prefer to use. On one hand you have fantasy, and the other has grimdark science fiction. I of course would listen to my players opinion, since I want them to have fun too. I think trying new settings is good, since you can start with new characters In Space!

Well its the new year and I’m sure there will be more to talk about the subject, especially with the new campaign I have to spring on my group. More updates to come, since there’s always more I could ramble about.

-Minkus

Marvel: Siege of Asgard

Marvel’s latest crossover storyline is bringing together a few loose ends ever since the last major crossover, Secret Invasion. The in-between time introduced the set up for this new story, with Dark Reign, the introduction of the Dark Avengers, and the loss of Iron Man in Dissassembled.

Asgard sets up shop in Broxton Oklahoma, and one of the gods goes outside and blows up a football stadium after being attacked by The Hood’s men. Osborn makes a play and sends in the Avengers, taking out Thor in issue one of Siege. We close out as Iron Man is still in a coma, and Captain America looks like he wants to step up next.

Meanwhile Loki and Osbourn try to get together all of Marvel’s bad guys under one roof, but Namor and Frost quit the team for various reasons, and then Doom quits because Osbourn won’t attack Namor. Osbourn then asks the president to help him attack Doom, which just makes it worse when his follow up question is to attack Asgard. It looks like Osbourn doesn’t care if the president agrees with him or not, because he then sends all of his media sources to Oklahoma to make him look good. In comes the Embedded storyline, where Norse god Volstagg (who was blamed for the attack on the stadium) teams up with some reporters to get back to Asgard and give their side of the story.

Osbourn is the big bad here, although he listens to both Loki and his goblin mask for advice, which is bad news since he also goes around now as Iron Patriot, as leader of H.A.M.M.E.R. We have appearances from the Sentry, Taskmaster, the Hood, and some secret weapon that Osbourn used against Doom. Osbourn promised the Dark Avengers that if they follow him on this one they can go free, which means we could have the New Avengers (or some mix and match at least) coming back in the future. This storyline has most of Marvel’s big players, which could mean big things for the Marvel verse.

So we are officially into the new storyline, which seems to have Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man all teaming up to take on Osbourn, Ares, Loki, and the Dark Avengers. With Thor already down, the next wave comes out February, but there are still a few one shots and side stories to keep us going.

It starts here!

Hey everybody! This is the first post here at Mondegreens & Nonsense. What is Mondegreens & Nonsense? Well once I have an about page up I have to explain it now I guess. A Mondegreen is a mishearing or interpretation of a phrase when you say one thing and hear another. It’s also a very odd word. This blog is for all of you out there with interests in everything. I’m certainly not going to limit myself to one specific focus, and neither should you!

There will be more to come shortly, since as of now its pretty empty here.

-Minkus