AU Shippin' Out March 17-21: No More Heroes

No More Heroes has been on the radar of many Wii owners for a while now and is finally making its way to Aussie retailers this Thursday. The protagonist--Travis Touchdown--lives in a motel in the city of Santa Destroy, California, and is a massive otaku fan--someone who's obsessed with Japanese anime and manga. One day, Travis wins a beam katana in an online auction and decides to become a hit man. Naturally, when he runs out of money for video games and comics, he takes on more hits and eventually finds himself on a quest to be the number one hit man, ranked by the United Assassins Association Official Manual. No More Heroes features overly stylized gore and employs a simple control scheme. Players use the A button to swing the beam katana and the B button to perform hand-to-hand actions. Motion control is used during the finishing moves to slice enemies literally in half.

If wielding a blade won't cut it, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the sequel to Ubisoft's 2006 smash hit, is also out this week. While the game isn't a direct sequel to the original, as events in the game occur before and after the original, the game features a definitive ending. On the multiplayer side of things, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 supports up to 16 players online on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Three new multiplayer modes have been added to the mix. First, team leader sees players getting their leader to the extraction point without being assassinated, all the while attempting to assassinate the other team's leader. Next, team demolition is a classic attack-and-defend mode where one team attempts to plant a bomb while the other team tries to disarm it. Finally, total conquest sees two teams face off against each other, with each side trying to control three satellite dishes around the map while uploading data and defending captured points from attack. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes out on March 20 and will be available on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with a PC version to follow in the not-too-distant future.

This week's new releases are listed below (list taken from retailer and publisher information--actual dates may vary).

March 20, 2008
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PS3, 360)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Hard Evidence (Wii)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (DS)
Downstream Panic! (PSP)
The Spiderwick Chronicles (Wii, 360, PC, DS, PS2)
Jumper: Griffin's Story (Wii)
Battalion Wars 2 (Wii)
Brain Assist (DS)
No More Heroes (Wii)
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS)
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (PS3, 360, PC)