Red Steel 2

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 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

Just Dance

I admit, I wasn’t expecting much when I first heard about Just Dance a few months ago. I figured it’d be just like another one of those games like Dancing with the Stars and High School Musical where you see characters on screen dancing, but all you’re doing is waving your remote to match the visual cues on the screen. Ho Hum.

The first thing that struck me when I popped the game into the Wii was that these were fun songs from every era. They’re all family-friendly, and there’s something in the track list for everyone, from baby boomers to Gen X’ers to Gen Y’ers. Here’s the entire track list. Most of the songs are not covers, but original tracks from the original singers.

Girl Just Want to Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
Ring My Bell – Anita Ward
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Edit Remix) – Elvis vs. JXL
Cotton Eye Joe – Rednex
Surfin’ Bird – The Trashmen
Heart of Glass – Blondie
Womanizer – The Gym All-Stars
Groove Is in the Heart – Deee-Lite
Jerk It Out – Caesars
I Live to Move It (Radio Mix) – Reel 2 Real feat. The Mad Stuntman
Not N Cold (Chick Version) – Katy Perry
Mashed Potato Time – Dee Dee Sharp
Girls and Boys – Blur
Fame – In the style of Irene Cara
Lump – The Presidents of the United States of America
Kids in America – Kim Wilde
Pump Up the Jam – Technotronic
I Get Around – The Beach Boys
Le Freak – Chic
That’s the Way (I Like It) – KC and the Sunshine Band
Louie Louie – Iggy Pop
Funplex (CSS Remix) – The B-52s
Jin Go Lo Ba – Fatboy Slim
DARE – Gorillaz
Bebe – Divine Brown
Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
Can’t Get You Out of My Head – Kylie Minogue
Acceptable in the 80s – Calvin Harris
Who Let the Dogs Out – Baha Men
Wanna Be – Spice Girls
Step By Step – New Kids on the Block
U Can’t Touch This – MC Hammer

The second thing that impressed me was that this game features actual dance moves to the songs. In other words, not only are you playing the game, you’re learning actual dance steps. You’ll learn the “Mashed Potato” that was all the rage in the 1960′s to Dee Dee Sharp’s “Mashed Potato Time”. You’ll learn the best disco moves of the 70′s with songs like “That’s the Way I Like It”. And my personal dream come true–you can dance like MC Hammer with “U Can’t Touch This”.

For the controller, they went for a decidedly simpler approach, and they hit a home run. For using one Wii remote, the controls are remarkably accurate as far as detecting whether you’re dancing correctly or not. For each move, you’ll be given a grade of “Great”, “Okay” and “X”. Now, I won’t lie and say the controls are the most precise in the world. There’ll be plenty of times you’ll be doing the moves precisely, but the Wii will tell you you’re not. But where this game triumphs is that even though the controls may be off, the game is so fun that you really don’t care.

And you also find that the more you practice the moves and “feel the music”, the better your scores become. If you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve memorized the dance and are just doing the moves to the music, your score will be great.

The game is simple. You choose a song, and then after a countdown from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you’ll see a silhouetted character on your screen doing the dance moves. The character is generally dressed appropriately for the song: a disco dude will lead you through “That’s the Way I Like It”, a cowgirl will do a two-step to “Cotton Eye Joe”, and a dog (yes, a dog) will dance to “Who Let the Dogs Out”. You basically just have to do the mirror image of the character’s moves.

They also have multiplayer games. In the first game (Challenge), you can basically have a dance-off between you and up to three other friends to see who’ll get the high score. Again, you don’t mind in this case if the controls are not completely precise because you’re all on the same playing field. In the second game (Strike a Pose), it’s like a game of Red Light / Green Light where you have to freeze in your tracks when the music stops. The third game (Last one standing) is an elimination game where the person who makes the least mistakes wins the game.

As fpr the exercise value, with virtually every song, I ended it panting because I was out of breath, and even though I was out of breath I wanted to try it again and again until I got it right. To me, that’s the sign of a great exercise game.

Reviewed by: Nutwiisystem.com,   Jan 12, 2010