Red Steel 2
Producer: Ubisoft Paris
Release Date: March 23, 2010
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Rating: Teen
Genre: First-Person Shooter
You’re Steel The One…
Written by William Nadel
In a time long ago, I sat in eager anticipation for the future of immersive gaming. The Nintendo Wii, still full of tantalizing promise, filled me with visions of perfected gaming controls. One of the first games slated to wow us was Red Steel. The game promised precision based sword and gun combat using the Wii controls, but it fell far short in its execution. Here we are some time later with the sequel, Red Steel 2. I must admit that after the disappointment of the first game, I was looking forward to ripping this game a new orifice. After playing through the entire package, I can say with certainty that Ubisoft Paris has done very well with making me forget their previous debacle.
Red Steel 2 is a western/Yakuza style ninja fantasy revolving around the “story” of a nameless hero, wearing a cowboy hat and leather bondage paraphernalia on his face. I use the term “story” very loosely because there really isn’t one of any substance. The “story” progresses through simple audio files and short, somewhat corny cutscenes. They never gave me a sense of purpose behind the endless combat.
That being said, I didn’t buy this game for its story. I wanted to finally utilize the Wii Motion Plus accessory to live out my gunslinging and swordfighting dreams. All in all, they have developed a deep and engaging combat system. The Wii Motion Plus adds close to true 1:1 motion feedback on the controller. That means the sword and gun move exactly how you move the controller in real life. When you slash, the sword in-game slashes at the same angle you did when you almost hit your girlfriend in the face with the Wii-mote. At any time, you can press the “B” trigger to shoot the gun while pointing the Wii-mote at the screen. All of this works as designed, but the game starts off too slowly with a small selection of limited sword moves. It isn’t until all of the sword and gun combos are unlocked that the flow of combat and the real promise of the gameplay comes to fruition. They require you to repeatedly return to your mentor for training, but the training comes in baby steps. Once all attacks and parrying moves are obtained, the game becomes a hell of a lot more immersive. You are required to perform specific controller movements to execute preprogrammed maneuvers, but these generally seem to register accurately. Learning how to reposition the controller after a sword slash takes some practice, but it becomes second nature.
Because everyone has specific tastes for controller reactivity, the developers have given extensive options for altering the behavior of the controller and game camera. All of this freedom is great, but you can accidentally ruin your controls if you blindly change the bounding box and look sensitivity. Luckily, they created presets that cover a wide range of possibilities. This customization is vastly improved over the first title.
The graphics are very crisp with the 480p connection and are some of the best graphics to date on the Wii. The sound design is basic, but those compressed to sh*t files do their job nicely.
All being considered, this game is worth its weight in pollution and well worth the admission price. If you actually take the time to master the controls, you will be pleasantly surprised by the depth of this 10 hour campaign. Hopefully they will think further out of the bounding box next time and include some true 1:1 swordfighting action online.