Red Steel 2I 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 ish or a 9/10, with 1 being bad and 5 being average. I already adore this game. It ripped the title of “My favorite 3rd party Wii title” right out of No More Heroes 2′s hands, and this is coming from someone who isn’t a fan of FPSs at all really.
TL:DR
Pros:
Absolutely amazing combat system.
Great visuals, music, and world.
Good challenge.
Cons:
World layout could be improved.
More mission variety.
Closing comments:
I adore Red Steel 2. Its an absolutely amazing game and could go down as the most improved sequel in video game history.
Reviewed by : R. Fietzek-DeVries, Mar 25, 2010
Bop It Extreme 2
Bop It
Littlest Pet Shop Lpso Virtual Pets – Kitty 1
Powerball Neon White Pro Signature
Canon EOS Rebel T2i