Red Steel

"One year later, is Red Steel worth its budget price tag? I think so."

It was during the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2006 that Ubisoft would unveil what would be known as the Nintendo Wii's very first title. Utilizing a mixture of first person shooting and sword fighting to take advantage of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck combo, Red Steel was born.

Being a wildly anticipated title with a very modest hype engine surrounding it, this not-so-stellar title in the eyes of the professional reviewers would sell over a million copies in the period of four months.

As of today, Red Steel has earned the name of a love-it-or-hate-it title as several individuals have enjoyed the game whereas just as many despise it.

So what happened? Well, it was during Red Steel's showcasing that many gamers were hoping that the infrared aiming on Nintendo's new console would allow deeper immersion in the first person genre to do away with the traditional dual analogue controllers, but by the time previews and reviews began to roll in, hopes began to wither as the new setup warranted more criticism than praise. Red Steel would not be remembered rather fondly.

I, however, happen to be one of those individuals that actually liked Red Steel. Yes, I'll happily admit that there were several issues with the game that needed addressing, and I certainly wouldn't hold this as the first title I'll recommend to a fellow Wii owner, but to say that Red Steel is a broken abomination that needs to be thrown into the fiery depths of the earth is as big of an overstatement as it sounds.

To begin, let's talk about the issue that ‘broke' the game: the controls.

Controls: 8/10

To say that Red Steel is an unplayable title is a stretch in every sense of the word. As long as you have two functioning limbs connected to your shoulders, you can play Red Steel just fine.

Granted, the bounding box in this game is huge, so turning on a dime is literally impossible. But then again, why would you need to?

I should point out right here and now that you, as the player, can only take a maximum of three hits before you get killed in a gunfight.

With that said, this game is as much of a run-and-gun shooter as Call of Duty on the harder difficulty levels, so even if the turning was razor sharp, you couldn't do anything with it other than commit hara-kiri. Try playing Rainbow Six Vegas by fighting in the open and you'll know what I'm talking about (speaking of, Red Steel was created by the same studio that did Rainbow Six Vegas).

To play Red Steel, finding cover is a must, not just for the protection from the very accurate AI, but to warrant the best shooting mechanics possible by being able to scan an entire room and pick off enemies from a distance, which is much easier than it sounds.

Of course, not all levels are like this, as you'll also be fighting in small rooms and long hallways that don't offer as much protection as they could, so turning does come into light a bit more, but every level in Red Steel offers as much as it can to create a very playable first person cover shooter.

However, I'm not trying to pass this game off as ‘perfect' in the controls section, as my eight out of ten score shows. What I actually deduct points for, however, has nothing to do with the playability of the game, but rather the button configuration or attempts to utilize motion sensing for obsolete commands.

The first point I'll dock from is the Nunchuck. Yes, the little doohickey you hold in your left hand. This really ticks me off, as not only did Ubisoft France map several actions to the ‘Nunchuck thrust,' but there are also buttons unaccounted for on the Wii Remote that could've been utilized.

When you shake the Nunchuck, you can reload your guns, open doors, flip over cover, and even melee attack. Aside from the former, the rest are just too flimsy to use.

To open a door, flip over cover, or even attack an enemy physically, you need to get up close to the given object so that a prompt will show itself before you can perform the thrust. Couple this with that fact that you also have to point your targeting reticule at the particular target, whether it be a door, table, or a person, in order for the action to work and you've gotten yourself a definite less than perfect configuration.

Again, the actions aren't ‘broken,' it's just that it takes too much time and precision to just perform these simple feats as much as it would take to push a button, and if the gesture isn't recognized, you have to perform another thrust.

Like I said before, this ticks me off because these simple actions could have been very easily mapped to buttons, and then the whole issue could've been disregarded completely.

As it stands, the – and + buttons on the Wii Remote are your pause and objective buttons, respectively, whereas the 1 and 2 buttons are unaccounted for. Sure, these two numerical buttons are somewhat difficult to reach for on the fly, but they're perfectly suitable for actions such as pausing where you don't need to do so every second on the second, as games like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption proved.

Had the two aforementioned actions been moved to the 1 and 2 buttons, it would've left two perfectly reachable buttons in place to utilize button-friendly actions such as melee attacking, opening doors, and whatnot.

Also, as much as Red Steel is playable, there are some features that attempted to make use of motion controls only to make the actions feel clunky. For example, you have a zoom option, but to use it, you need to hold down the A button and move the Wii Remote towards and away from the screen to zoom in and out, respectively, and this makes picking off targets, especially moving ones, take a lot more time than it has to.

All in all, this feature should've been left out entirely and the zoom should have functioned much like Call of Duty where each weapon has its own individual zoom.

As for the sword fighting, there's really not much to say. As much as this gameplay mechanic stirred up the hype engine for this game, it's a very straightforward feature and the motions to perform attacks and blocks do just that.

However, there will be cases where you have to do exaggerated motions just for the attacks to work, regardless as to whether you have the sword fighting motions option set to ‘long' or short' movements, but this has to do more with the frame rate than the actual programming.

You see, Red Steel has an inconsistent frame rate that really glitches the motion sensor from time to time, warranting you to have to do exaggerated motions just for the actions to be picked up. I noticed this as certain swordfights had incredibly responsive controls whereas others didn't, and it had to do with high and low frame rates, respectively.

However, let me restate my comments that the frame rates in Red Steel never get so bad to the point that the game is unplayable; it's just so inconsistent that you'll definitely take notice of it, but will barely break the game. Think of the first Killzone on the PlayStation 2.

Overall, Red Steel is completely playable, and the shooting factor in the title is hardly the problem. What is the problem, however, is the sloppy button configuration, or lack thereof. In addition, some of the technical aspects to the game hinder other experiences, such as the aforementioned zoom function and frame rates.

Graphics: 8/10

For a launch title that was rushed under production, Red Steel is quite the looker. You'll have an array of good-looking environments with a slew of really awesome-looking effects ranging from dynamic explosions, rag doll effects, and destructible environments.

Unfortunately, that's as far as the praise goes.

When it comes to human models, it's a bit of a hit and miss. On the one hand, the casual animations and anatomy are pretty good, but the facial features are really lacking, as the expressions are incredibly stiff, even during the dialogue. When it comes to gunfights and swordfights, a lot of the movement appears really robotic. To top it all off, the characters have what looks like a cut-out look to them as certain edges of their body will have this really bright line outlining them.

Although a lot of the environments look good, they sometimes repeat themselves and become somewhat difficult to navigate. Also, some areas are incredibly under-detailed.

To top it off, you can tell that Red Steel was rushed for the launch window, as cutscenes are nonexistent. Sure, there are some in-game cutscenes, but it mostly consists of first person views of one particular character moving his or her mouth as he or she speaks with a repeated bodily motion.

Also, there are some cases where it looks like there were going to be legit cutscenes, but in their places, we get a slideshow of Photoshopped, comic book-styled narratives that, as oddly as it seems, look like the storyboarding stage of the game's development.

Speaking on a technical perspective, Red Steel is also quite lacking.

Despite several gunfights and explosions ringing from blown up cars, grenades, or fuel tanks, nothing is a dynamic light source. You can fire a gun in a dark hallway and it won't light up anything. You can destroy a car and its headlights will still light up the street. You can light up a tank of fuel and even though the explosion itself is bright, your eye will definitely catch that nothing else gets lit up.

Red Steel also benefits from destructible environments, as you can blow up cars, destroy tables, blow out windows and such, but it all feels rather tacked on. Cars and tanks are too well placed to make them inconspicuous and any object that reacts to gunfire ceases to have any ‘oomph,' most likely having to do with the minimal sound engine.

Red Steel, overall, had the potential to be one of the best looking titles on the Wii, especially with the game coming from the same Ubisoft studio that made similar powerhouses such Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 and 2 and Rainbow Six Vegas. I'd like to see what Ubisoft France could dish out on the Wii when they're not pressed for a particular launch window.

Sound: 7/10

Aiding in Red Steel's ‘love it or hate it' title is the hit or miss sound engine.

On the one hand, Red Steel is filled with dialogue from beginning to end, both in cutscenes and the gunfights that are littered throughout the title.

If I had to make a choice, I'd say that Miyu, your character's fiance, probably has the best voice actor out of all characters in the title. She has a variety of emotions and a booming personality that really help stress her emotions and feelings throughout the game. The only downside to her is that she's probably the only professional in the whole title, so when she's surrounded by not-so-professional voice actors, her ability is almost downgraded.

Then you have Harry Tanner, the United States citizen club owner, who's a distant second on my list. His smug persona really comes out in his voice, really pushing his character. However, there's just one problem: he talks to you and only you from the beginning to the end of the game, and when you're a silent protagonist, he should very well be delivering monologues.

Unfortunately, that's about as good as the voiceovers in the title get. It's not to say that everyone else besides the two mentioned above is bad, it's just that they're either coupled with bad script writing, deliver nothing but monologues, or are just way too robotic for their own good.

So there are some areas that are good in the voiceovers, but there are others that just need work, and lots of it.

Being the shooter that Red Steel is, this wouldn't be much of a review if I didn't talk about the guns. You have everything ranging from pistols to submachine guns to shotguns to rifles.

Now, some guns do have really nice sound effects, such as the first pistol you get your hands on and the UZI. The reloading and firing sound effects coupled with ricochets sound really good, and the shotgun pumping after a loud blast never gets old. The sniper rifle contains a nicely implemented echoing gunshot coupled with the click of the swivel.

However, some gun sound effects, just like the voiceovers, just need work. You can get your hands on a revolver, but it suspiciously sounds quieter than its automatic counterpart. The drum-fed shotgun lacks any form of booming sound effect, and the assault rifle sounds muffled, as if fired through a pillow.

Despite having a nice array of weapons with several variations in each category, Red Steel just lacks the most fundamental element that each needs: sound. It's not to say that it's bad, just average. A gun just isn't a gun if it doesn't sound like one.

Other things, however, such as explosions, glass shattering, and other destructible objects sound just like they would if they were destroyed. Props to Ubisoft in that effort.

Lastly, we have the soundtracks. I really can't think of any criticism for them, as they all contain really dynamic vocals coupled with powerful instruments, mostly drums, which really intensify each and every situation. This is probably the highlight the whole game, if I had to give an award for it.

Story: 6/10

This is where the game really falls apart.

As the story goes, you play as Scott Morgan, a bodyguard turned fiance of a Yakuza overlord's daughter. Everything is going well as the two of you plan to announce your engagement, but a rivaling Yakuza family under a young and power-hungry warlord known as Tokai attacks, kidnapping your fiance and gravely wounding her father.

It becomes apparent shortly afterwards that Tokai is after a ceremonial katana that is also an icon of many years of power, and wishes to use it to gain status in the Japanese underworld. Instead of yielding to Tokai's demands, Sato, your would-be father in law, entrusts the sword to you in hopes that you'll save and protect his daughter.

Just as it sounds, there may be some merit in Red Steel's story, but as some of my aforementioned criticism shows, it's just too poorly presented.

On the one hand, cutscenes are abysmal, only giving you poorly choreographed in-game cutscenes coupled with Photoshopped comic book-styled narratives that just don't have any form of cinematic power to it. Couple this with the fact that cutscenes can't be skipped, no matter how many times you've seen them, and things can get very monotonous in a short period of time.

To make matters worse, some cutscenes act as the checkpoint of a level, warranting you to watch a certain scene over again had you lost before.

Then you've got the schizophrenic voice acting, first person viewpoints, and the silent protagonist, all of which add up to a title that has no presentation merits whatsoever.

Again, the story had potential to be good, but was greatly hindered by its own shortcomings that could've been avoided.

Overall: 7.5/10

I really wish I could give a decimal, but since I can't, I'll give the criticisms the benefit of the doubt and round down to a 7/10.

Overall, Red Steel is a very fun title, at least in my opinion, whose shortcomings can be easily overlooked, especially since that you can find this title today for less than thirty dollars (in the United States, at least), and should at least be given a chance through a rental.

However, I'm not going to dismiss those shortcomings as they hold their grounds and are admittedly unacceptable by gaming standards, but shouldn't stop you from purchasing or renting Red Steel if you want to give it a chance. I did just that, and really enjoyed what Red Steel had to offer.

I sure hope you will, too.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/19/07

Game Release: Red Steel (US, 11/19/06)