Red Steel 2
Monday, May 23rd, 2011 at
10:24 pm
Red Steel 2
- Upgrade you arsenal of katanas swords, guns and abilities as you rack up victories against the Jackal clan.
- Embody a lone fighter, a man of few words with a shaded past full of mystery. Face various, and increasingly stronger, enemies and defeat challenging bosses in epic and intense fights.
- Visit various locations through a remote mixed metropolis in the middle of the American desert, where Eastern culture and Western culture have been smashed together into a hodgepodge jumble.
- The Wii MotionPlus provides 1:1 recognition where the sword and gun movements are precisely replicated within the game. Slash the villains the way you want. The harder you swing the Wii Remote, the harder the sword swings in the game.
- Become master swordsman and gunslinger fighting up to six enemies simultaneously; using your sword or your gun at any time; mastering aster combos galore; and, even deflecting bullets with the blade.
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Tagged with: Steel
Filed under: Wii Systems and Bundles
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Possibly the most improved sequel in video game history,
I wasn’t really a fan of westerns as a kid. Well, that is until my brother made me watch A Few Dollars More. After that I loved them, the serious ones, and the sillier, campy funny ones. They’re all so delicious. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a big fan of shooters both first and third as far as video game genres go, and nothing I’ve tried has really changed that, so sadly I haven’t really been able to enjoy westerns in my games as all of them are shooters. I really like seeing the character I’m playing, the way they move, attack, run, and I don’t really get that with first person games. That and shooting in general just doesn’t particularly do it for me. Even in most movies I prefer hand to hand or sword combat, it just feels more dynamic and interesting to me, and it’s no different for me in my video games. Well, that is until I saw some game play footage of Red Steel 2.
I hadn’t heard of the original before this, as I didn’t own a Wii at launch. But when I saw footage of a character that looks like Clint Eastwood meets Vash the Stampede meets Samurai Jack going through mobs using a combination of both swordplay and gun slinging, I was intrigued. Then I actually played it, and I was blown away. I just beat the game this morning, and I absolutely love it. I started on easy, go the hang of it then switched up to medium a little bit into the game. I plan to go back and beat it on Ninja.
As far as presentation goes, this is easily one of the most stylish games on the Wii, and one of if not the most graphically impressive. I’m biased about this however, as I love the Wild West, I love samurais, I love schizo tech, and I really love Cel Shading. The game has an absolutely killer sound track as well, with a love of really fast paced western themes. The story seems okay I guess, you play a nameless protagonist, returning to your hometown after being banished years before. You come to find it taken over by a gang called The Jackals, and their leader knocks you out and ties you to the back of his bike. While originally thought to be a random gang raid, it beginning to look as though this is more of a war against your clan. The voice acting is okay I guess. It’s nothing to impressive or memorable, but nothing painful either. Kind of unrelated, but I bought the game bundled with the Wii+ as I didn’t own one at the time of purchased, and I love the box it came with. I love boxes. There should be more of them.
A lot of people are going to complain about the fact that this game doesn’t exactly have 1:1, but it just wouldn’t work if it did. Most players aren’t exactly expert swordsmen, so trying to make it an over realistic sword fighting simulator would be a waste of time. Making it 1:1 would completely ruin it as an action game. I absolutely love the combat system. I mean it. I love how involved and intuitive it is. Its fast paced, exhilarating, and fun. Its undoubtedly my favorite combat system to come out this generation and possibly ever. I really believe this is the next evolution in motion control, and a new gold standard for Wii action games.
That said, the game isn’t perfect however. There are a few complaints but they are overshadowed by just how fun and unique the game is. My first complaint is how standard the missions themselves are, there needs to be more variety and uniqueness to go along with a game like this. This one annoys me, but its an out of combat thing. The game works because of the automatic mob targeting in combat, so you can swing your sword without your camera flying around all the place. This is not true when out of combat, so when you want to bash in crates that contain money, your camera swings around like an elastic flail and not all of the breakable objects have the option to Z target them. I’ve resorted to just using the spin attack to deal with crates, a button to fix the camera still outside of combat would have been nice, the “C” would have worked well, and then the “Check Objectives” menu could have just been included into the pause menu.
In addition, this game is absolutely 100% about the combat and showing what the Wiimotion+ can do. If you’re expecting something particularly deep, you aren’t really going to get it here either. That and while the environments look amazing, and the game also has a Metroid Prime feel to it, but the game world itself is very shallow. Most areas are corridors and moderately sized rooms with little variation in it. This game isn’t particularly deep, but the combat in this game is unlike anything I’ve ever really seen. How involved you get with the sword fighting is really unique, and the way the special attacks are built are very intuitive and dare I say, revolutionary. So if you’re getting this game, expect combat like you’ve never seen before in a video game. Its exhausting actually! I actually enjoy that aspect, it just feel so involved.
I would give this game a 8/10…
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|Red Steel 2 raises the bar for quality motion controls,
It has been months since I’ve played a game that I felt motivated enough to write a review about. Red Steel 2 has finally managed to break my general disinterest in game reviewing. Red Steel 2 shouldn’t even be associated with tragedy that was the original Red Steel. The original had its heart in the right place but the overall product was rushed for release, had buggy controls, and was considered un-fun by almost everyone I know. This new game isn’t perfect nor do I think it is the best game ever created; nonetheless, this game is noteworthy and awesome in every way the original wasn’t. Red Steel 2 also gives me an excuse to connect my Wii Motion Plus peripheral, which was sadly getting very little love. This game shows how to do motion control and pointer controls right, it shows a great sense of style and narrative, and has catapulted itself onto the short list of “games I think everyone should try.”
CONTROLS: Above all else, this game is about the controls. The motion controls aren’t perfect, but they are better than any motion control game out there with the possible exception of Tiger Woods 2010. When I say that this game sets a new standard for quality motion controls, I am not exaggerating. Responsiveness and accuracy are superior to anything I have played to date. Going forward I suspect that a lot of developers for the Wii, Playstation Move and XBox Natal will be using this game as their measuring stick. When the Wii first came out, I think this is the type of experience that people were imagining. I’m just disappointed that it took this long to get to this point. Combine the quality motion controls with responsive and accurate pointer controls for the gun play, and… I just am impressed. It works. There are some quirks, to be sure, but it still works. The most negative thing I can say about the controls is that there is a bit of lag after swinging your sword before you are restored to pointer control making switching from sword to gun a slower process; the good news being I rarely find myself needing to switch quickly from my sword to my gun, so this isn’t a huge problem. Blocking enemy attacks is also a bit dicey, but I am confident with more practice I will be able to adapt better.
One thing I do have to say about the controls is that this game isn’t really “couch friendly.” The motion controls frequently require full arm motions and pivoting at my hips has helped many times. To achieve the control I wanted, I pretty much have to play the game standing up. That little warning at the beginning of every Wii game where they feel compelled to tell us to make sure to have enough space to play might mean something;I have already managed to pop my curious dog in the face quite a few times when she gets too close as she checks out what all my flailing around is about. Additionally, the short cord between the nunchuck and Wii remote creates some problems. Considering I have short little stumpy arms I expect that people with longer arms may have more difficulty. I have purchased a nunchuck extension cord with hopes that the extra cord length will keep me from accidentally unplugging the nunchuck. That way I can tangle myself up in extra cords instead. I’m not sure if I’m going to win this battle.
GAMEPLAY: The game is a first-person shooter/swordplay adventure. The arenas and levels are relatively small and compact, in some ways sort of like the Metroid Prime series or the first Fable on Xbox. You will blast and slash your way through lots of bad guys and bosses; accept missions; upgrade equipment and buy special moves and so on. In terms of level design and game progression the game play and progression is handled well, but there isn’t really anything new or revolutionary that most other quality action games aren’t already doing. What makes the game play standout from the rest of the pack is how the controls allow you to interact with the game. Sometimes I feel a little overpowered compared to the enemies, but I am only playing the game on normal difficulty. Boss battles seem a bit tougher than I expected though. Additionally, there are a few points in the game with Quick Time Events, which I really don’t like, but luckily there are checkpoints within the QTE sections that prevent you from having to repeatedly work through several minutes of timed button presses only to die at the very end and start over. The QTE sections do work, but as a general rule I don’t like QTE in any game, so I am biased.
GRAPHICS/PRESENTATION: This game looks good. Possibly the best on the system at this time. Not just “good for a Wii game” but genuinely good, and I attribute that to the quality art style that feels like a cell shaded graphic novel western with samurai. Think “Mad Max” mixed with some “Seven Samurai” and a bit “Fist Full of Dollars”. I feel compelled to compare this game’s style and quality favorably to Borderlands on…
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|More fun than should be allowed,
I suppose I may be one of the few people who really enjoyed the first Red Steel game. I simply felt that as an intro title to go with the Wii it was a fair game with an “okay” storline. That said; Red Steel 2 easily tops the first game in story, gameplay, controls, and art work.
The amount of accuracy portrayed in the game trailers and featurettes have been slightly embelished. Some of the movements I saw them do in those vids I haven’t been able to do as well. But those very small bits don’t negate the fact that the controls are still insanely close to 1:1. The voice acting is…..pretty good. There’s definitley been better (FFXII & Uncharted 2) and definitley worse (FFX & Red Steel 1). The voice they gave the hero though is undeneiably badass and its only too bad that he’s a man of few words.
Without too many spoilers, your character (instantly a step up from the first game’s Scott Monroe) awakens to find that his home city has been taken over by a group of bandits called “The Jackles”. As the the quintessential lone hero, its up to him (thusly you) to clean up the town.
Techinically the entire game could be played out and beaten with just using the sword. But the gun fights that you get into are just way too much fun. The moment I saw the long barreled revolver I was instantly in love with it and use that gun more often than any of my more powerful guns.
Bottom line: Red Steel 2, in my opinion, easily lives up to the hype of being a sword weilding game that feels very natural. Its incredibly fun and addicting and no doubt will spawn more Red Steel games in the future.
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