Finalized!! Review: Red Steel (Wii)
Posted on
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
by Gary A. Ballard
The first game I saw in the Wii pre-release hype that made me excited about the system was Red Steel. The shooting part of the game was certainly interesting, though not unique, but it was the swordfighting sequences that really grabbed me from the word go. Troubling reports from various media outlets about the game's mediocrity worried me, but it was still the first game I wanted to rent when the Wii was released. And after Zelda and Wii Sports, it was the first game I played even though I have Call of Duty 3 from Gameznflix as well. And since I received it on Monday, it's the game I've played first when I've gotten time at the console.
Red Steel is a first-person shooter with a Hong Kong action movie theme. That theme is stamped all over the game, so thick that it practically smells of fried rice and hibachi shrimp. The menus are all rendered as neon signs with Japanese characters, lit up like a pachinko machine. After a quick cinematic tutorial on using the pointer which also serves as a calibration for the pointer's sensitivity, you are thrust into the story. Your name is Scott and you're about to meet your fiancée Miyu's father, a Japanese businessman named Mr. Sato. While waiting to be allowed in to see your future father-in-law, you are caught in an assassination attempt by a horde of waiters with Uzi's. The action starts fast and furious and doesn't let up for more than a second or two. You have to rescue Mr. Sato, find Miyu and get out of the hotel before the waiter army puts too many caps in your ass. At certain points, you are treated to cutscenes of two types. There are the obligatory "in-engine" cutscenes and more stylistic comic book style cutscenes, with dialogue spoken over moving panels of comic art.
The story is thin, of course. If anything, I should say that the whole package reminds me of playing through one of John Woo's Hong Kong movies, like The Killer or Hard-Boiled. The characters are one-dimensional archetypes, the situations meant to drive the character from one fantastic blow-up set piece to the next. While neither high art nor cinema, for a fan of that genre of action movie, this game is a brilliant homage. The sound is particularly good. The Wiimote is used for reloading sounds as well as sword slashes. During gunfights, bullets whizz around you and there's always glass to be shot up with an amazingly engrossing crash. Explosions are meaty and bright, guns are booming and the music score is a driving beat that entertains without getting in the way.
Many of the reviews I've read claim the Red Steel controls are weak. I disagree. While they could be a bit more precise, they are certainly acceptable to me, much more so than this game would be with analog stick aiming. I've only two complaints about the use of the Wiimote, one of which is just inherent in this control scheme. Unlike a mouse, the Wiimote doesn't center automatically; that is if the Wiimote is pointing to the edge of the screen or to the side, it can keep going on and on, throwing your viewpoint completely out of whack. This doesn't tend to happen during fights, of course, because you are constantly aiming at your victims. This only requires you to be a bit more careful about your resting position in non-action scenes. The other complaint is about the game's zoom feature. Using the Wiimote, you can hold down the "A" button to lock your camera on something, and then push the Wiimote forwards to zoom in, or pull backwards to zoom out. This motion doesn't feel quite natural, especially if you either aren't holding the Wiimote away from your body or if you are holding it on your knees like I do. It's a minor complaint, however, not really detracting all that much from the action.
The gameplay mechanic that hooked me on this game was the swordfighting. While I'm normally sitting down for the shooting sections, when a swordfight happens, I'm on my feet. I'm quite sure I look like a complete tool swinging the Wiimote around, but I care not. In my opinion, the swordfighting adds a visceral dimension to the game that even the joy of shooting a Yakuza gangster directly in the face with a shotgun doesn't have. Don't get me wrong, I love the shooting part, and think the game is worthwhile on that alone. But the swordfighting scenes are what really make this a homerun game. Yes, it's a simplistic approach. The sword doesn't emulate every single movement you make, instead slotting your movements into a series of canned slashes and parries. But it's still great fun, in my opinion, and a welcome change of pace from the run-and-gun areas of the game.
The game isn't perfect. Some of the characters have really bad, stereotypical accents, bordering on the insulting. Distant enemies can be hard to see, which is as much a function of my terrible eyesight as any fault of the game. The menu system is a bit confusing at first, requiring dragging icons instead of just clicking on them. Its faults do not outweigh the fun I've had with it, however. Other reviews may give you reason to doubt the game, and if so, rent it before plopping down $50 for a maybe game, or wait and buy it used.
If my opinion changes as I get further into it, I'll post about it. But for now, I'm enjoying it more than any of the other Wii games I've tried so far.
UPDATE: I'm now about 10 hours (30%) into the game. It definitely has a few warts. I've found a few clipping issues such as guns being stuck through walls. About four or five hours into the story, there's a particular branch of the story that requires you to follow one specific path. If you manage to find a way around that path, which I found by accident quite easily, the story won't advance until you hit a later script. I found myself tasked with saving my woman, but once I reached her, she just ignored me because I'd not run over the script trigger spot. It wasn't a game killer, as there is another trigger spot later on that advances the story.
The sword fighting gets better. After certain points in the story, you learn new skills such as special sword moves. These give a bit of variety to later melee encounters. The story also branches, giving you the option to follow the linear story in the order you choose. Finally, you gain the ability to "focus" which is akin to bullet-time slow motion. With this, you can disarm opponents and target specific enemies. If one of those enemies is a leader, taking him out can cause the others to become confused, ceasing their attacks.
One of the stranger gameplay mechanics is that of your health. At most times, your character can take about three or four shots before death. But rather than following typical shooter rules and providing some form of health powerup, your character can recover full health just by staying out of the line of fire for a few seconds. At first, I was taken aback by this mechanic, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it fits the genre. It reminds me of the main characters in Hong Kong action movies; they get shot, wince in pain and duck behind cover, and twenty seconds later, they are off again like nothing ever happened. It's one of those mechanics that may drive traditional shooter fans nuts.
Despite its aforementioned flaws, I am still enjoying the game. I don't think everyone would, and I stand behind the recommendation that you try it before you buy it for full price. Were I one to hand out numerical scores, I'd put the game overall somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8.5, depending on whether you are a huge fan of Hong Kong style action or not. It isn't a must-buy, but I've certainly played it more than Zelda because of my affinity for the genre.
UPDATE: I finished the game. Or more correctly, I made it through the storyline. The game actually has two endings, one the easy ending and another more difficult to achive ending. I made it through the easy ending, which involves a swordfight that you win not by killing your opponent but by breaking his sword. Winning the fight gets you one ending, losing gets you another. The ending was a bit abrupt. It tied up most of the loose ends about the story, but felt rushed. It doesn't help that you get one small set of cinematics and a "You have complete Red Steel" message before being shown the very long credits.
Overall, I stand by my estimation that the game deserves about a 7.5 - 8.0 rating. The short ending cuts it from a possible 8.5. It has multiplayer, but I never tried it since it is only splitscreen. The replay value of the game is very small. Your progress is marked in percentage points, but in order to get 100% (or more) you must complete the game on hardest difficulty and do everything right. I'm sure the game would lose its lustre, at least to me, before I could complete that lofty goal. And with no indication that such an achievement will have tangible rewards a la Resident Evil 4, replay value is almost nil. I ended up with approximately 10.5 hours of gameplay and my progress stopped at around 77%. I would suggest the game is a great rental or worthy of a half-price purchase unless you just have money to burn.
Red Steel is a first-person shooter with a Hong Kong action movie theme. That theme is stamped all over the game, so thick that it practically smells of fried rice and hibachi shrimp. The menus are all rendered as neon signs with Japanese characters, lit up like a pachinko machine. After a quick cinematic tutorial on using the pointer which also serves as a calibration for the pointer's sensitivity, you are thrust into the story. Your name is Scott and you're about to meet your fiancée Miyu's father, a Japanese businessman named Mr. Sato. While waiting to be allowed in to see your future father-in-law, you are caught in an assassination attempt by a horde of waiters with Uzi's. The action starts fast and furious and doesn't let up for more than a second or two. You have to rescue Mr. Sato, find Miyu and get out of the hotel before the waiter army puts too many caps in your ass. At certain points, you are treated to cutscenes of two types. There are the obligatory "in-engine" cutscenes and more stylistic comic book style cutscenes, with dialogue spoken over moving panels of comic art.
The story is thin, of course. If anything, I should say that the whole package reminds me of playing through one of John Woo's Hong Kong movies, like The Killer or Hard-Boiled. The characters are one-dimensional archetypes, the situations meant to drive the character from one fantastic blow-up set piece to the next. While neither high art nor cinema, for a fan of that genre of action movie, this game is a brilliant homage. The sound is particularly good. The Wiimote is used for reloading sounds as well as sword slashes. During gunfights, bullets whizz around you and there's always glass to be shot up with an amazingly engrossing crash. Explosions are meaty and bright, guns are booming and the music score is a driving beat that entertains without getting in the way.
Many of the reviews I've read claim the Red Steel controls are weak. I disagree. While they could be a bit more precise, they are certainly acceptable to me, much more so than this game would be with analog stick aiming. I've only two complaints about the use of the Wiimote, one of which is just inherent in this control scheme. Unlike a mouse, the Wiimote doesn't center automatically; that is if the Wiimote is pointing to the edge of the screen or to the side, it can keep going on and on, throwing your viewpoint completely out of whack. This doesn't tend to happen during fights, of course, because you are constantly aiming at your victims. This only requires you to be a bit more careful about your resting position in non-action scenes. The other complaint is about the game's zoom feature. Using the Wiimote, you can hold down the "A" button to lock your camera on something, and then push the Wiimote forwards to zoom in, or pull backwards to zoom out. This motion doesn't feel quite natural, especially if you either aren't holding the Wiimote away from your body or if you are holding it on your knees like I do. It's a minor complaint, however, not really detracting all that much from the action.
The gameplay mechanic that hooked me on this game was the swordfighting. While I'm normally sitting down for the shooting sections, when a swordfight happens, I'm on my feet. I'm quite sure I look like a complete tool swinging the Wiimote around, but I care not. In my opinion, the swordfighting adds a visceral dimension to the game that even the joy of shooting a Yakuza gangster directly in the face with a shotgun doesn't have. Don't get me wrong, I love the shooting part, and think the game is worthwhile on that alone. But the swordfighting scenes are what really make this a homerun game. Yes, it's a simplistic approach. The sword doesn't emulate every single movement you make, instead slotting your movements into a series of canned slashes and parries. But it's still great fun, in my opinion, and a welcome change of pace from the run-and-gun areas of the game.
The game isn't perfect. Some of the characters have really bad, stereotypical accents, bordering on the insulting. Distant enemies can be hard to see, which is as much a function of my terrible eyesight as any fault of the game. The menu system is a bit confusing at first, requiring dragging icons instead of just clicking on them. Its faults do not outweigh the fun I've had with it, however. Other reviews may give you reason to doubt the game, and if so, rent it before plopping down $50 for a maybe game, or wait and buy it used.
If my opinion changes as I get further into it, I'll post about it. But for now, I'm enjoying it more than any of the other Wii games I've tried so far.
UPDATE: I'm now about 10 hours (30%) into the game. It definitely has a few warts. I've found a few clipping issues such as guns being stuck through walls. About four or five hours into the story, there's a particular branch of the story that requires you to follow one specific path. If you manage to find a way around that path, which I found by accident quite easily, the story won't advance until you hit a later script. I found myself tasked with saving my woman, but once I reached her, she just ignored me because I'd not run over the script trigger spot. It wasn't a game killer, as there is another trigger spot later on that advances the story.
The sword fighting gets better. After certain points in the story, you learn new skills such as special sword moves. These give a bit of variety to later melee encounters. The story also branches, giving you the option to follow the linear story in the order you choose. Finally, you gain the ability to "focus" which is akin to bullet-time slow motion. With this, you can disarm opponents and target specific enemies. If one of those enemies is a leader, taking him out can cause the others to become confused, ceasing their attacks.
One of the stranger gameplay mechanics is that of your health. At most times, your character can take about three or four shots before death. But rather than following typical shooter rules and providing some form of health powerup, your character can recover full health just by staying out of the line of fire for a few seconds. At first, I was taken aback by this mechanic, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it fits the genre. It reminds me of the main characters in Hong Kong action movies; they get shot, wince in pain and duck behind cover, and twenty seconds later, they are off again like nothing ever happened. It's one of those mechanics that may drive traditional shooter fans nuts.
Despite its aforementioned flaws, I am still enjoying the game. I don't think everyone would, and I stand behind the recommendation that you try it before you buy it for full price. Were I one to hand out numerical scores, I'd put the game overall somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8.5, depending on whether you are a huge fan of Hong Kong style action or not. It isn't a must-buy, but I've certainly played it more than Zelda because of my affinity for the genre.
UPDATE: I finished the game. Or more correctly, I made it through the storyline. The game actually has two endings, one the easy ending and another more difficult to achive ending. I made it through the easy ending, which involves a swordfight that you win not by killing your opponent but by breaking his sword. Winning the fight gets you one ending, losing gets you another. The ending was a bit abrupt. It tied up most of the loose ends about the story, but felt rushed. It doesn't help that you get one small set of cinematics and a "You have complete Red Steel" message before being shown the very long credits.
Overall, I stand by my estimation that the game deserves about a 7.5 - 8.0 rating. The short ending cuts it from a possible 8.5. It has multiplayer, but I never tried it since it is only splitscreen. The replay value of the game is very small. Your progress is marked in percentage points, but in order to get 100% (or more) you must complete the game on hardest difficulty and do everything right. I'm sure the game would lose its lustre, at least to me, before I could complete that lofty goal. And with no indication that such an achievement will have tangible rewards a la Resident Evil 4, replay value is almost nil. I ended up with approximately 10.5 hours of gameplay and my progress stopped at around 77%. I would suggest the game is a great rental or worthy of a half-price purchase unless you just have money to burn.
Labels: Video Games, Wii
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 11:29 AM
3 Comments
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3 Comments:
Thanks for the review. At this point do you think its replay value warrants a purchase as opposed to just renting it?
I'm probably the world's worst at determining replay value, because once I finish a game I'm done. I doubt there will be much replay value, as it's a pretty linear storyline and no multiplayer. It's probably a better game to rent or buy used/discounted. I don't know how many hours it'll take to finish it.
I was incorrect. The game actually does have multiplayer, but it's only 4-player split-screen. I've not tried it and don't really plan on it. Split-screen just doesn't do it for me on shooter games.
I'm still playing and about 64% of the way through the game. It still kicks ass.
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