Introduction

Out of all of the launch titles for the Nintendo Wii, Red Steel was certainly near the top of the list for gamers. The concept of using the Wiimote and Nunchuk in order to replicate authentic Japanese sword fighting techniques has never been seen before, and even the first person shooter action looked like it could be loads of fun if it was pulled off correctly. While Ubisoft undoubtedly had an interesting take on using the new control scheme, sadly this rushed title doesn’t live up to the hype.

The Real Yakuza World

Red Steel follows the story of Scott-San who finds himself at war with the Tokyo underground in order to rescue his kidnapped fiancé. The Wii isn’t by any means as technically power as other next generation consoles, but this doesn’t detract from the presentation at all. As you find yourself running through all sorts of environments, from car shops to bathing spas, the explosive effects and destructible objects take your mind off the areas in which any Wii titles will be graphically inferior. The character animations are slick for the most part, and the entire game runs at a smooth 30 FPS, aside from when the occasional checkpoints pop up. Although there are plenty of instances in which you’ll face waves of identical enemies, for the most part you should be too wrapped up in the combat to notice.

The sound department is commendable to some extant. Once projectiles start hailing the cinematic techno beats begin to blare as the world around you is annihilated. The developers did a great job at making it sound as if an actual gunfight was taking place because you can hear objects all over the room explode. In addition, the Wiimote will even emit sound through the speaker when you reload, and little touches like this are naturally nice to have. This, in conjunction with screaming enemies and the sound of bullets ricocheting all over the place, all culminates to create a blood rushing experience.

The game itself looks and sounds fine when you’re playing, but unfortunately we can’t say the same for the cutscenes. In-between missions you’ll be forced to sit through cutscenes even if you’ve already seen them, and this can be especially annoying if you keep dying before you reach a checkpoint. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cinematics are painful to watch even if you haven’t seen them before. The voice actors speak with hardly any emotion at all, and the directors tried for an artsy comic book style visual presentation that just turns out dull in the long run. This wouldn’t be too horrible if you could skip through them, but sadly you have no choice but to sit there and wait until it’s over.

The Wiimote – An Extension of your Body

One of the biggest selling points of Red Steel is obviously how the Wiimote and Nunchuk can act as an extension of your body. As such, it’s very easy to pop the game in and immediately expect to be replicating Kill Bill style moves in no time, but that’s just not the case here. For the most part, the game is a first person shooter. The Wiimote is used to aim and look around while the control stick on the Nunchuk will allow you to walk. By looking far in any direction you’ll be able walk instead of having to strafe, but unfortunately this brings up one major problem. Let’s say there is a door to your immediate left; if you want to face it head-on you need to aim the Wiimote to the left side of the screen. If you don’t aim far enough your character won’t change where is he looking, and if you look to far the sensors in the control react uncontrollably and your character will begin to spin haphazardly. There’s no way to quickly turn around either; if you’re being shot at from behind all you can do is look a little bit to either side and wait until your enemies come into view.

A game with the name of Red Steel seems like it would involve plenty of sword fighting, but as we found out the title can be misleading. Katana fights occur at set, predetermined locations, so you won’t be able to run through buildings chopping everybody to pieces. Whenever these boss-type fights occur, your major weapon will be controlled by the Wiimote and your parrying weapon will be controlled by the Nunchuk. As advertised, your in-game sword acts very similarly to how you swing the Wiimote in real life, except for the issue that speed isn’t a factor. Sword fighting as a whole feels clunky because the movements are so slow, and this combat could’ve been so much better if things were just sped up a bit. You can swing the Nunchuk left or right immediately before you would be struck in order to block and leave your opponent vulnerable, but sometimes it’s safer to dodge serious blows outright. The concept seemed so promising, and it’s a shame to see that it wasn’t implemented to its full potential.

Taking Down the Yakuza

As mentioned, the story revolves around rescuing your kidnapped lover, and to do so you’ll battle your way through a solid ten hours worth of Yakuza gangs. It can certainly seem like a daunting task to interfere with a gang war, but when your woman is at stake anything is possible.

The levels all flow in basically the same way. You’ll be giving some sort of objective that merely involves traveling from one point to another. Occasionaly you’ll be given some other tasks, such as protecting an area from being overrun for a certain amount of time, but for the most part you’ll be taking part in traditional run and gun tactics.

The weapon selection is pretty extensive, starting off with some lower end pistols and moving on to some heavy duty grenades and rifles. The Benelli M4 Shotgun is one of the best all around weapons because it can deal one shot kills, and it has a significant amount of accuracy even at long ranges. It’s possible to make your way through the whole game with the same set of weapons because your enemies will drop tons of ammunition, but it’s a lot more fun if you mix things up for yourself. Regardless of what weapon you use, it’s definitely cool to know that you can shoot your gun sideways if you tilt the Wiimote.

There aren’t any difficult settings to choose, so as it stands the computer AI doesn’t put up all that much of a fight. Although it’s possible to see guys flip over tables and hide behind any piece of imaginable cover, as a whole the AI comes across as downright dumb. If your health is running low you need to find cover in order to give your meter some time to regenerate, and when you’re protected from fire the AI really shows how weak it can be. Some foes will slowly sneak around corners, and even if they have a direct shot at you they will still creep ever so carefully. Sometimes you can go entirely unnoticed even if you’re right out in the open, which further adds to the list of bugs. Rivals don’t seem to work together, and instead they all try to be heroes and end up failing unless they’re in large groups.

Amidst its significant list of flaws, deep down there is potential for Red Steel to be fun. Even if the enemies don’t have the best tactics and if your guns seem too powerful, it’s hard to make a game filled with shooting and sword fighting to lack any entertainment values whatsoever. When you run into a room loaded with enemies, anybody with a pulse will surely get excited as they struggle to blast their way through anybody in sight. Even if it wasn’t executed to its fullest potential, the fact of the matter is that you can run around with guns and swords and wipe out hundreds of Japanese gang members in the process.

Red Steel Multiplayer

Red Steel offers several split-screen multiplayer modes for up to four players, but is it worth your time? Initially multiplayer comes off as appealing simply because shooting up your friends has been a favorite video game pastime for years and years, but sadly the fun factor here wears off quickly. In addition to the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, a third Killer mode is also available. Here, each player fights for themselves while attempting to complete a secret objective given to them through the Wiimote. As you might’ve guessed, these objectives aren’t all that secret considering everybody else in the room should be able to hear just as well as you. Before a match begins players can choose one of three bonuses, more damage, more life, or unlimited ammunition, and once they fill up their bonus meter during the match they can activate their power-ups. Unfortunately, potentially good ideas like this don’t make up for the scarcity of game modes, maps (there are only four available), or for the fact that multiplayer combat just isn’t exciting.

Conclusion

It would’ve been fantastic to see a title such as Red Steel hit it big right at the launch of an extremely innovative console, but instead this game feels way too rushed. The idea is certainly creative, and if a Red Steel 2 comes out Ubisoft could easily release a polished sequel that could be so much better. As it stands now, though, Red Steel is worth trying out if you aren’t overly critical, but it’s hard to recommend this title for purchase because the initial amusement won’t last you too long.

Gameplay	11/20
Graphics	15/20
Sound	15/20
Value	10/20
Preference	11/20
Overall	62/100