Red Steel 2 Wii Motion Plus Bundle
9.2
10
21
21
Ubisoft redeems itself for its debut Wii shooter
When I learned that Red Steel 2 didn't sell nearly as well as it could have, I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. After all, the original Red Steel was Ubisoft's train wreck debut title for the Wii. Who would want a sequel to that sorry excuse for an FPS? Frankly, I don't want one either. Surprising as it sounds, calling Red Steel 2 a sequel to anything would be a misinformed insult. For starters, Red Steel 2 doesn't suck. In fact, it's a bona fide high-quality title that puts countless first-person Wii titles to shame. On top of that, it's not even correct to call this a shooter--it's an action game that happens to have been built around a first-person perspective. Before I get into gameplay, let's talk about the presentation, starting with the visuals. Take one look at the world of Red Steel 2, and prepare to spend the next few days looking for your jaw after it drops to the floor. If someone walks in on you while you're playing and mistakenly thinks you're playing and Xbox 360 or PS3 game, don't be surprised. Every inch of the game is crafted in a gorgeously stylized comic-book feel, with heavily defined lines and a brilliant color palette. But that's only a sliver of the game's true style. Literally everything in Red Steel 2--the environments, characters, enemies, and even the soundtrack--is a magnificently imaginative and original blend of both modern and traditional Western and Eastern themes and styles. Bandits wear Japanese hakama trousers and leather jackets and attack you with swords that look like a cross between a machete and a katana; wild-west saloons and shantytowns, Chinese-castle structures, and Tokyo-esque glowing signs mesh together like you've never imagined; harmonies of flute, shamisen, guitar, and jaw harp compose a soundtrack that's worth falling in love with. The game's beauty is further enhanced by the silky-smooth 60-fps frame rate that hiccups only occasionally during transitions between areas. The overall style is plenty enough to undermine the forgivably cheesy voice acting and less-than-exceptional story, but then again, you won't care. now on to gameplay. What really made Red Steel suck was its control scheme that overused and overestimated the Wii remote's motion-sensing capabilities and thus ended up feeling awkward and clumsy. Red Steel 2 brings controls that are smooth and comfortable. Despite lacking custom button commands, Red Steel 2 takes inspiration from High Voltage Software's The Conduit and offers players even more immense and precise control customization that lets you find the perfect match for your aiming and motion-sensing preferences. You can fine tune everything including aiming sensitivity, pointer smoothing, horizontal and vertical turn speed and responsiveness, inner and outer bounding boxes, and even swing sensitivity. Not to mention that you can see these changes take effect in real-time as you make them. The Wii MotionPlus is incorporated into the game brilliantly. The feel of wielding a real sword exceeds that of Wii Sports Resort, mostly because the game does a better job of keeping track of how you're holding the remote. There are also a few action-prompt events that really exploit what that little white plug-in can do without ever feeling overused. All of this comes together in the combat system, which employs an excellent targeting system that lets you keep track of who's attacking you and when. Many other games that invoke first-person melee combat often feel clunky and make it difficult to know what you're slashing at. The mix of swordplay and gunplay let you approach a battle in variety of ways, from keeping your distance and looking for openings to charging in and wearing your opponent down. Switching between the two is a seamless matter of pointing and pulling the trigger to draw your gun and simply swinging to draw your sword. Playing on the lowest difficulty setting lets you toy and experiment with your enemies, whereas the aggressive and engaging A.I. on the higher difficulty settings keeps things from getting stale. Unlocking new moves and experimenting with finisher moves is incredibly fun and satisfying, and the incredible fluidity between the different moves you can perform means you'll rarely feel restricted from doing what you want when you want to by a canned animation. When you're not fighting, there's a decent amount of exploration that affords you the chance to get lost in the incredible visuals or just find tons of random stuff to break and collect cash from. There are a few minor bugs, but it took me more than one playthrough to take notice of them. Game progression is semi-linear, which means you'll get some areas to explore until you permanently leave them (which the game kindly warns you about before you do so) as well as areas that are exclusively linear. My biggest disappointment is the game's length, clocking in at around 10 to 15 hours. There's a Challenge mode that lets you go back and play individual levels with your upgraded character, but this mode unfortunately doesn't let you purchase any upgrades you may have missed in addition to making you play the tutorials again. But that's really the big thing that I didn't like about Red Steel 2; it left me wanting more. That's not to say that I didn't really enjoy the experience enough to make me say that you will too. In my opinion, Ubisoft's biggest mistake was naming it Red Steel 2. Did they want to apologize for Red Steel? Did they want to realize the kind of vision they had for a hardcore motion-based game? Whatever their reason, don't let the title scare you. The amount of content may not make it purchase-worthy for some players, but I dare you to find someone who finds this game anywhere near as sucky as Red Steel.
10/18/11
Reds still 2
its a Awsome Action game with good COncrolls and Art still i love it! Lots of guns and all. way better than the ferst one!
10/16/11
THE coolest wii shooter i have ever played!
this game is probably THE coolest game i EVER played ever! the fps sword games play is sooo sick. the controls are really easy and you keep learning more new cool moves which are basicallly different ways to kill enemies besides shooting and slicing. once you get al of the moves, you are almost unstoppable. you look like a ninja pro with all teh fancy moves. you get four classic cowboy weapons too. you can upgrade each of them to better harness their unique abilities like knockback rapid fire targeting lock and explosive rounds. i got the game in early august and it is october and i still havent finished it and im a pretty hardcore gamer but it's a wii so not as much as on my xbox 360. the story is okay... but the gameplay and cutscenes are sweeeet. over all this game is probably the coolest game i have ever played on any system.
10/9/11
awsome
i do not have this game but i saw my uncle play it and i thought it was the best game i have seen. i will soon get the game and am really looking forward to getting it because i have read so many good reviews about this game.
7/21/11
Perfect!
I Truly love this game. Story mode is excellent. Even though it took me a week to beat on easy mode I started over again on medium mode and died 20 timed on a boss named payne. He's not even half way into the game. The graphics could be better but they do fit with the story. My one problem was at points it would take a little long to load. Otherwise this game is perfect!
2/24/11
Another game
I loved this game for about 5 min.Its so annoying that you have to stick to the missions.You also wont have enough time to get you're weapons leveled up very high before the end of the game, and no there is no continuing after the last boss which sucks.I would never recommend this to anyone
11/2/10
do yourself a favor...
buy the game. it's awesome. great weapons, great gameplay, good story, although the game does feel a bit unbalanced... its still really worth the buy... i mean what other games are out there where you can have a sword and a gun and use them into awesome finishers and stuff? its just awesome!
9/29/10
At last, they did it right
The game designers did the best thing they possibly could for this sequel; they made it have absolutely nothing to do with the original. The new setting and story are far more intriguing, particularly if you, like myself, enjoy both samurai movies (particularly the works of Akira Kurosawa) & westerns (particularly anything with Clint Eastwood), the look created by the mixing of eastern & western influences is stunning, and the ability to fluidly switch between sword & gun play at a moments notice ensures a lot of fun to be had in any given fight (offering many opportunities for Raiders of the Ark-esque antics). The only things I think are really bad about the game is the lack of unlockable content, and the shortness of the game. If you like fast paced action, intricate swordplay, and western styled gunplay, then this is definitely a game worth getting.
6/16/10
Best sword-fighting game yet!
Red Steel 2 is completely opposite of the clunky first RS. The controls are near perfect for a sword simulator. The combos are awesome and you get to choose several different ways to dispatch your enemies. A true sword simulator for those into this kind of game. Graphics are the best on the Wii so far! Sound track is excellent and gameplay is stellar. The only complaint I have is the stupid push button doors or the roll up doors, the lame story, and the lifeless characters that help you out. Other than that, gameplay is where it's at! And the controls are top notch with the Wi MotionPlus. I can't wait to learn all the combos so I can see the variety of moves the main character can make. Don't miss out on this game for the Wii. It's one of the better ones to come out on the Wii for sure.
5/20/10
A melee fighter’s dream
Up close and personal is what this game is all about. But you are not limited to up close sword play. The game emphasizes a combination of sword play and gun slinging. Those who tried the first game will have a general sense of what the game is like, but don’t think of the first game as the standard that this game aspires to. In fact, this game blows the first right out of the water. Tight controls is one thing this game excels at, the motion plus works like a dream with this game. If I recall, the game was built for motion plus from the ground up, and they did a wonderful job of making the controls as tight as they can be. The game itself is fun and the plot is interesting. After the first game, this is a lot better than I thought it was going to be.
3/28/10