Hrm, because it sucks? I hope not.

I think Ubisoft just realized that even released a month later, Red Steel 2 is competing directly with the multiplatform Bioshock 2 (which will probably slaughter it).  And if that doesn't, you also have God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII releasing just a few weeks prior.  It's a busy month, and it's likely that the audience that would buy Red Steel 2 probably has a pretty expensive February->March already.  That is, of course, unless the mythical Wii expanded audience actually shows up to the party for once.

Of course, I'm not disregarding the possibility that the game sucks, either.  This is an Ubisoft Wii title, after all.

Honestly, I'm expecting another XIII here--a game with a neat hook and interesting art style that winds up being dull and uninteresting.  I'd love to be proven wrong, but my hopes aren't high.

In all fairness, when Ubi puts all of their talent behind a title they can make an amazing title. Rabbids Go Home was an excellent adventure title with some incredible creativity put into it. It looks like Ubi may be putting the same kind of creativity into Red Steel 2. Not saying that it WILL be fantastic, but considering its been in development for a long time and use MotionPlus I doubt it will be terrible or even mediocre like the first one...

Pap, while I agree with you, Ubi is trying to aim at pleasing the same audience who bought Metroid Prime 3/Trilogy. Not only is their reputation with the non-casual Wii audience pretty much destoryed, if Red Steel 2 isn't all that it's cracked out to be then their already damaged rep gets more damaged. There will be no saving them.

Also, I bet Nintendo would be pretty pissed since Retro supposedly helped them out with M+.

500k sounds about right. They could still hit a million lifetime with good reviews and promotion.

Conduit is sitting around 400k lifetime, right? But COD4 Wii is looking at 500k after only two months, so there you go. If people know the name, and it has some brand recognition they will buy the Wii FPS. Ubisoft just needs to get the Red Steel name out there.

The official Red Steel forums have had a Fan kit for download the past month, but Ubisoft hasn't told anyone about it. Failed attempt at viral. http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6421073957/m/6471087618

You talking about sales? Because I wasn't talking about sales, I was talking about overall quality.

Still, I agree that the game will be difficult to sell to the core Wii audience. The first game, while successful, was a critical failure and fans hated it. Ubi has gone back and forth between being a Wii supporter and being just another apathetic third party, and the casual efforts are pretty damn bad. So with this I doubt the game will even read 500,000 copies by the end of 2010.

To be brutally honest, I see no reason whatsoever to pick up Red Steel 2.

1) The first game in the series was lackluster, giving me no confidence that its sequel will be any good.
2) It has no online multiplayer.  Come on Ubisoft, having a single-player-only FPS game that isn't named Metroid Prime just doesn't cut it these days.  Let me put it another way: I'm expecting RS2 to have a half-assed single-player component...the least you could do is give it some badass online functionality.

So basically... you expect the game to be underwhelming in all respects?

Lindy makes me angry!

I've still stuck to my boycott of Ubisoft. Of course, I'll make a single exception for NMH2. I'm not going to punish poor Suda.

The only way I would even consider buying RS2 is if it's GOTY material.

If competing with other games in March is an issue then why don't they delay the game further until april, may, june, or whenever? And by delaying it they could use the time to add an MP component.

(sorry, i'm feeling too lazy to make up a new post)

I don't think it would be possible to do online play well in this game. There are all kinds of ways to deal with lag in a FPS, but there's no way to hide it in the swordplay, and you'd need 100% accuracy to pull that off. They had the choice to be like Brawl or to be like NSMBW, to do online badly or not to do it at all.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. It's ridiculous to buy a game solely to support those who made it and just as ridiculous to refuse to buy a game in an attempt to punish those who made it. Buy games because they're what you want to play and don't let industry politics be a factor.

However, buying a game out of genuine interest in the curiousity and style of an influential creator is, in my book, perfectly fine.

Woah. No online in this games?  What's the point. Even if it reviews well I think it'll sit around like Madworld and Overkill. Without solid online the word of mouth buying will probably fail.  I think it was 1997 I played Doom online. Why is this still such a hurdle?  Inexcusable.

"What's the point."

A swordplay adventure.

I don't think RS2 would work very well with multiplayer unless there was more 1:1 skill with the sword.

See I figured that since Red Steel was junk it would make no sense to assume that Red Steel 2 would be any good.  I never understood why anyone was interested in it.

But then the first Assassin's Creed wasn't considered to be very good but they made a sequel to it anyway and in the end the sequel was well received.  And Ubisoft was responsible for that as well.  There is precedence of Ubisoft flupping a first game and then recovering with the sequel.  So now I don't know what to think.  I'd still wait for reviews though as Ubisoft has never really impressed me much, especially on the Wii.

Because the first Red Steel was obviously rushed in order for it to be a Wii launch title. It obviously wasn't ready to be released, and that's why it sucked. With this game Ubi has spent much more time on it (even delaying it some months). Another thing to be excited about is this one has M+ support which means the sword fighting will be more 1:1 instead of waggle.

So don't dismiss it before it has even been released. We know MP is out of the question with this one, but that doesn't mean it won't be a solid SP adventure ala Zelda or whatever.

This is just a giant self-fulfilling prophecy. They don't expect it to sell, so they're not going to bother trying to market it, which means it's not going to sell.

Because that would make sense, that's why.  Unless they're seriously going to support this game with a marketing campaign on-par with Nintendo (hah!), I think it's insane to release this game in March when they could push it back a month or two and really make sure this thing's ready to go.  I know I have a passing interest in the game, but my wallet's more than already owned by Bioshock 2 and FF XIII in that timeframe (there's also Dante's Inferno in there somewhere I'm somewhat interested in).  I have more confidence that they won't suck than I do with Red Steel 2 and I doubt I'm the only one, so unless Ubisoft's ready to play ball they'd better get the hell out of the way.

Hello, sexy. I like the way you talk.

Even though it's a fundamentally and completely different game utilizing additional technology, and the first one was a LAUNCH title for a system which hadn't even been thoroughly tested as far as control accuracy goes? Good thing that makes sense.

Good thing it isn't an FPS then.

Which is pretty retarded given the game is ENTIRELY about the single-player.

And TBH if you're putting the fans of this in the same boat with the people who are going to eat up FFXXXVI and God of Brown and Generic Plots, I think you have a screw loose.

This is exactly what I thought when I read the news post. I figure they're just doing this to get out of spending any money on marketing, so when it sells like shit, they can say "See, we totally called it"

Well people have been doing that with the Wii!  That's why Nintendo can make good video games and sell video games on the Wii and third parties are still scrambling for this years excuse as to why they will underperform.  It's because your educated gamer, your average gamer, and your average consumer at large think UBISoft makes crap, so they don't buy any of it.  It's not really a willful "boycott," but it is a bad reputation, and one that does have tangible effects on sales.

I think that's the problem with third parties in general on the Wii.  They have some pretty bad reputations and every single half-assed port or mini-game collection or spinoff they make just flings them back into Nintendo's direction.  I mean check out all of the games UBISoft has published for the Wii.  They've published something around 80 games for the Wii and maybe 7 are worth playing, much less purchasing and owning.  Contrast that With Nintendo's 50 or so published games, with almost all worth playing and lots worth buying and a few which are among the best games this generation.

And that's a key problem here.  UBISoft has to do a LOT of PR management to get back into your regular Wii consumer's good graces.  That means ending shovelware, taking Wii development seriously, and stop acting like you know the Wii audience, when it's pretty clear that you don't, or otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to blame them when you fail.

Good games do sell on the Wii, but you also have to make sure that's mostly what you make, and not force your consumers to fish through piles of your crap to get it.

Geez. This is exactly what Nintendo fans DON'T need.

The fact that Jonny is on the podcast and thus I am very familiar with his voice means that I hear this in my head in his voice, which is incredibly creepy. I'd say it's going to give me trouble sleeping if I weren't going to have been up for 36 hours by the next time I sleep.

Half-assed SP campaigns tend to result in quarter-assed MP modes, not bad-ass ones.

I imagine swinging the wii-mote around like a sword and my first thought isn't "cool!" it's "ow my wrists".

Bowling Grandma:  (laughs)

The new impressions I'm reading say this isn't really even a FPS, more of a first person action game. It excites me.

I see an action game of multiple disciplines.  The camera perspective is of little consequence.  Hard-on.

Swing with your arm, not your wrist!