Platform	Wii
	Genre	Shoot ‘Em Up
	Publisher	Ubisoft Entertainment, Inc.
	Rating	8 / 10
		Buy this game from CD WOW!

Introduction

I’ve always pondered on why the majority of editors decided to muster up terrible inputs against Red Steel. Those intentions led me to buy the game myself and give it a try. And after playing the game thoroughly, I must beg to differ. Let us put aside all those biased reviews, and let’s focus a little on this evolutionary shooter.

Story

You are a muted protagonist named Scott Monroe. As a former bodyguard, you are to marry a beautiful Japanese bride (Miyu) with the permission of her father Isao Sato. Isao is a sorta Godfather of a large Yahuza family. So his judgment is crucial. But after some uprise, you are attacked by a rival Yahuza gang, Miyu is captured, and Isao is injured, and later dies of his lack lusting pain. The Yahuza gang is after Isao’s special weapon, the Katana Giri. A sword that represents a symbol of peace. You travel to Japan, and seek to find your bride-to-be.

The storyline is given straight forward without confusion. Everything is given to you in this comic-style cut scenes, which often highlight your next mission. And these contain full voice work as well. I don’t find this style cheap and flimsy, everyone tends to find it as an excuse of lazy work. But I find them artistic and colorful. If you ever watched the film series Broken Saints, you’ll understand what I’m referring to.

Controls

Now this is basically what makes Red Steel stand out. Thanks to the Wii remote, you can avoid the dual analog setup, and you can coordinate your moves just by pointing at the screen. Motion sensing also allows you to reload, throw grenades, and sword fight when intended. Many editors have to tendency of noting glitch controls, and problems relating to control sensitivity. I often pondered about this, and I am allowed to excuse this, only because I never came across a glitch control.

Red Steel enables you to perform movement and turning with the use of motion sensing, and one analog stick on the nunchuck. At a obsessed rate, people complained that the controls freeze up once you point the Wii remote outside the screen, resulting in a loss of remote signal. Here is my scoop on the subject: I never had that problem before. When I point my Wii remote outside the TV, my character reacts to that, and continues to turn, or shoot when I press the B button. No, I didn’t get my copy of Red Steel in a pot at the end of a rainbow. I didn’t get the only copy that actually enables me to play pointing outside the screen; I just do what I want to do. I’m not sure if people are over exaggerating over the matter, it just never happened to me.

One of my minor problems concern with sensitivity though. The controls were tough to begin with, only because I had my reticule bounce around the screen. I was getting excited. There are three different options to change the sensitivity, whether you want it low, or high. But they never show a significant difference. Each plays relatively the same.

Graphics/ Level Design

We are all aware that the Nintendo Wii isn’t as powerful as it’s competitors. But that isn’t an excuse to make terrible games. However, Red Steel is indeed the best looking title at launch. Ubisoft has put much work into making this game colorful and lush of detail. Each mission has environments that are distinct from one another. Red Steel runs on the Unreal Engine 2.5, and everything looks great. I’d say this game is a bit more than a GCN game, probably comparable to Resident Evil 4 respectively.

Level design is beautiful. You travel from Los Angeles to the outskirts of a Japanese Harbor. Each mission is built in a linear fashion. The game focuses on duck-and-cover game play. Each of the levels also comes with destructible environments. So expect degradable chucks of concrete flying everywhere.

Sword Fighting

I was very disappointed that Ubisoft didn’t conduct 1:1 sword fighting in Red Steel. Instead, they intend to use limited moves such as combos and special attacks. While this may upset those eager to buy this game, don’t hush up just yet. While the fighting is limited, they are fun indeed. And plus, if you don’t like the sword fighting, you are in luck. The game consists of a small percentage in sword segments that barely go over 25% of the game. Most of the time, you’ll be handing out lead.

My biggest complaint about the sword fighting is how it’s implanted into the game. Red Steel is set in the modern world, but many of the Yahuza insist on taking you on with a blade, rather than in firearms. You move forward through the mission, and then you randomly come across a Yahuza who slaps you with baby talk (read later in my review) trying to provoke you. I’m Chinese, not Japanese, but I guess all Asians follow this kind of tradition of honor. It reminds me of that movie Into the Sun with Steven Seagal.

Sound

It’s a great honor to have Tom Salta to conduct the music for Red Steel. Each level has a different musical score, and they sound heart pounding with a Japanese vibe. Especially during the firefights, the music uproars with intensity and excitement.

The other sound I’m referring to is voice work. Which is probably Red Steel’s major weakness. I’ll just note one comment about it: terrible. You would contemplate that someone of a writing profession will be able to write dialogue rich in tone and mood. Yet I found myself slapped with repetitive words that have no meaning. I don’t like to be called a moron or a pig in a firefight. You are in a serious gun battle, not a snowball fight. I can never take this game seriously because of the terrible voice work and dialogue. Even during the cut scenes, you seem to listen to characters that seem to attempt translation of Japanese-into-English. Absolutely terrible.

Multiplayer

Nintendo hasn’t revealed much about their Wifi plan, so this game doesn’t have any online portion to it. Instead, Red Steel resorts to the traditional 4-player split screen with three different modes, and four arenas. It’s not robust in any way. While there are only four levels to choose from, they are fairly large, and you might get lost in them. There are the traditional modes of Death match and Team DM. The third mode is called Killer. Four people are dropped into a level, and your Wii remote rings as a telephone, and you are given an objective you are to complete. I haven’t had a chance to try this mode out, but people tend to appeal to it. Making it worthwhile.

Miscellaneous

-You do get a robust amount of weapons to muster in Red Steel. However, you are only allowed to carry two weapons, so always have an efficient amount of ammo in your possession.

-A.I is surprisingly smarter than I expected. Enemies would duck for cover and sometimes will try to flank you. There are problems with their intelligence though. Enemies will often try to stand in one spot and shot lead at you. And for some reason, they have a sharp shooting aim at your head. Even if you shoot them with a sniper, they can take an Uzi and nail you in the face with one shot. I don’t think they are that much of pros to handle guns like that.

Difficulty: 7 out of 10
Length: Approximately 10 Hours

Replay Value/ Closing Comments

Red Steel contains a beefy campaign in which you can replay to improve your stats. The multiplayer might have you play the game for a couple weeks, but don’t expect anything phenomenal to keep you playing for years, or months for that matter.

All in all, I don’t agree with the many reviews on this excellent shooter. I believed that people over exaggerate their problems, and that seems to be the basis of their dilemma. If you read Alfangus’s readers review, you’ll understand that I agree with him. Red Steel deserves no less than a 7. I’m giving it an 8.0 because it deserves it. Only minor problems concerning the story and such keep it away from a perfect score.

Overall Score: 8 / 10