02-02-2007, 03:16 PM
STORY
There really isn't much to say because there isn't much of a story to talk about. Your girlfriend. Miyu Sato, has been kidnapped by a rival gang of her father's, Isao Sato and you must set out to find her. It also seems to follow the tried and true Mario story of "Our princess is in another castle" since on many occasions you will see Miyu on many occasions only to fight your way to her location to find that see's gone and been taken somewhere else. If you're looking for a plot driven shooter, keep looking.
GRAPHICS
Red Steel offers one of the best looking environments of all Wii launch titles to date. But you'll be too busy shooting or being shot at to really notice. The game is almost constant action so you'll be more focused on your enemies than your surroundings. I gotta say that I really enjoyed the explosions since they looked great. However other than that I really don't have much too say about how this game stacks up visually but you've really got nothing to worry about.
Along with graphics Red Steel also shines in the audio department. It features one of the greatest original soundtracks in any first person shooter I've ever played. The game also uses the stereotypical bullet sounds that seem to be recycled among games but it doesn't hurt the game and sounds fine. The game makes limited use of the remote's speaker for when you switch guns and reload. Aside from that it acts as a ringing cell phone but disappointingly the phone call is relayed through the TV instead of the remote which would've been pretty cool. The worst sounding part I must say is the voice overs. They sound so terrible and corny that it's ridiculous and unfortunately there's no way around it at all since they didn't provide a skip button. If it wasn't for that this game would've received a much better score in sound.
GAMEPLAY
And this is where everything starts to unwind. The shooting aspect of the game is solid as it makes use of the Wii's pointer functionality. Other shooting aspects such as reloading (shake nunchuk side to side) and picking up a new weapon (shake nunchuk down) work well. As you may have heard sword movements aren't 1:1 but the sword fighting still works well. And I should mention that if you were looking to buy this game for it's sword fighting then you should think again. Red Steel is a first person shooter that throws in a sword fighting minigame every now and then. The worst part however is when you need to learn new technique you're asked to perform it. For example, right now I'm stuck on something that requires me to slash left, right, nunchuk left, then something else. The problem? I slash left and it reads it as if I just went upwards. I spent 10 minutes trying to get it down but only got it once (they want it 3 times) and that was a fluke. The worst part I must say is it's multiple bugs. Among them you will sometimes see an enemy floating up to the roof and they will stay there. I had an enemy shooting at me and had no idea where he was. I looked up and he was right above me. At times you will also see a fallen enemy's weapon floating up at eye level. It doesn't keep you from picking up the weapon or it's ammo but it's annoying none the less.
Frankly, it just isn't there. If you set your mind to it you will be able to complete the main game but I suppose there are some amongst you who would become frustrated with it and stop part way through it. The game does feature a multiplayer mode but frankly it sucks in my opinion. It really feels like it was thrown together at the last minute. It's dead silent during a multiplayer match which I can't understand. The game has such a great soundtrack but it wasn't used in multiplayer. And maybe it was just me but I felt the levels looked terrible. They seemed about half the quality of what you'd see in the single player missions and as a friend put it, it was pretty much GoldenEye on Wii.
BUY
The game does have many bugs but it's still a fairly strong shooter. If you've been looking forward to this game then it's at least worth a rent.
DON'T BUY
If you're a shooter purist then don't waste your time with this shooter-sword fighter hybrid. If you aren't a fan of shooting games, Red Steel won't change your mind.
SCORE
STORY: 6.8/10
- It's a paint by numbers story that had some potential for more complexity but it isn't there.
GRAPHICS: 9.5/10
- At least it looks good.
SOUND: 9.6/10
- And sounds great.
GAMEPLAY: 6.2/10
- It's shooting is solid but there's far too many bugs.
LASTING APPEAL: 5.4/10
- You'll finish it once and then it will more than likely collect dust.
OVERALL: 6.6/10
- Not even great looks and sound can save this sub-par FPS.
Excellent - Great - Good - Average - Bad - Avoid
- Kindrik