Red Steel 2: Hands On

NZGamer recently got a taste of the most anticpitated titles this year from the likes of Sega, UbiSoft, THQ and Warner Bros. at local distributor Monaco's E3 Night in Auckland.

One of Ubisoft's major efforts for the Wii will be Red Steel 2, the follow up to the 2006 samurai/shooter crossover. The original was received with mixed reviews, and was in its way the 'adults can play the Wii too...' flagship title. Swords. Guns. Etc. Problems with the controls, however, stopped it from really taking off. Generally it was sluggish, and the sword strokes of gamers everywhere made their way onto the screen in unexpected ways. It wasn't bad, often just weird. That strangeness seems to have been mopped up a bit for the sequel, and that's not all to have changed. At Monaco E3 Night, I got to play it, guided by a girl in a Red Steel 2 t-shirt, who knew exactly what I needed to do.

Now, I'll forgive her for talking to me like I may have never seen a Wii in my life, because without worrying about which way to turn and what door to open I was able to concentrate on the controls more fully. And Red Steel 2 is a game that controls well, despite first impressions. Wii Motion Plus will come bundled with the title for all of those who haven't yet picked up Wii Sports Resort or otherwise got their hands on one. To catch some of you up, it's basically a Remote add-on that creates a much more realistic control mechanic, and as a result, a rather believable on-screen translation. While this means the Remote can now recognise more subtle and distinct movements and positions, it also means it's a LOT more sensitive.

Red Steel 2 is in first person, and your direction is controlled (in part) with the Remote. Motion Plus takes some getting used to because at first over-steer is a major problem. Imagine your suave samurai/cowboy fishtailing his way through town and you can see he would seem rather more ridiculous than bad-ass. When your cursor hits the side of the screen, it's easy to turn just a little too hard, and over-correcting is just as much of a problem. Once this has been mastered, however, the game runs a little more smoothly.

To swing your sword, all you need to do is... swing. The katana comes free without any additional button pressing, which is nice, although you need to be careful not to hit your B-button trigger, as this controls your pistol. Do this mid-swing and things get a bit bound up; so much so, one risks a bit of Mirror's Edge style motion sickness. You can take down your enemies with carefully placed bullets, or rounds, and for some you'll need to smack the armour off them before applying your cold steel. Again, this is all the one motion, but it does add an extra dimension to things. Unarmoured enemies, you'll notice, are vanquished with rather more ease, and so those walking around with big metal plates protecting their vitals require a bit of a careful approach. Wii Motion Plus means the harder you hit them, the more damage you do to the armour, and the developers promise many more treats with the additional hardware besides.

To keep the action top-rate while avoiding too high a rating, the developers have gone for a) a more cartoon-like aesthetic and b) no nasty bodies hanging around rotting in the sun. The cell-shaded graphical style, while nixing the gore, does make Red Steel 2 look quite nice. The level I played through required me to move indoors and outdoors and face a number of foes, as well as a sort of mid-level boss (weak spot on the back - yawn). All looked very pretty indeed, but not overly realistic. The way the dead flash and vanish reminded me quite a bit of Double Dragon.

I do wonder about how easy this game is going to be. The controls kept it from being a total walk in the park, but surely a gamer is only twenty minutes or so at the helm before all of this falls into place? Well, it's too early to say, and what was on show was just a snippet, after all. I am interested to see how this goes come release, and of course you can expect more from us then. Check out the trailer for some nice realworld/gameworld interplay and tongue-in-cheek (whether intended or not) narrative.