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Wii

North America

Red Steel

by Steven Rodriguez - May 10, 2006, 9:12 pm EDT
Total comments: 2

Guns and swords both sound like a perfect fit for the Wii controller. But how does it work in practice?

As with all Wii games at E3, Ubisoft's Red Steel was on display inside Nintendo's booth. The short demo of the game took about five or six minutes to complete, explaining game controls along the way.

Basic movement is handled by the analog stick on the nunchaku attachment. Obviously, looking and aiming is handled by moving the Wii controller around. This took a few minutes to get used to, for both how sensnitive it was (very sensitive) and how the pointer re-centered itself. By pausing major controller movements for a moment, the aiming/moving cursor resets into the middle of the screen if it was pushed off to the side too far. It works fine, but again, it takes some time to adjust to the new setup.

The first section of the demo was basic sword training. The player's character used a wooden sword to spar against a student swordfighter, and then against a master teacher. Quickly moving the controller in a vertical, diagonal or horizontal motion resulted in a sword slash at the opponent. The sword in the demo didn't move in real-time with the movement of the controller. Instead, the slashing controller movement prompted the sword to slash in the direction of the controller movement. Many people were wildly going back and forth with the controller and not getting many quality swipes. The best way to go about it was to perform a slash, briefly pause, then perform another slash. It was not immediately obvious if the sword combos promised by Ubisoft were in the demo on the floor. Keep in mind that the player is still able to strafe around the opponent with the analog stick on the nunchaku attachment while the swordfighting is occuring.

This area also taught the player how to block and parry incoming sword attacks. Quickly twisting the nunchaku unit (like turning a doorknob) activates the sword parry, in which the hero pulls out another sword to block or deflect the attack. Performing the manuever too early will leave you open for attack. Doing it with fair timing will block the attack. If the timing is perfect, the attack is parried and opens up the opponent for a free hit. The execution is simple to do after understanding the nunchaku velocity required for the parry to work.

After learning the basics of the sword, a new foe stood in the way before reaching the second area of the demo: A door. Opening it is as simple as thrusting the nunchaku forward or down as if you were opening the door with your free hand. Not having a button to press to open the door frees up the other buttons on the controller for more important things, like shooting a gun.

The B trigger under the remote fires off guns. In the second area of the demo, it's used to shoot a sub-machine gun that your player automatically equips. (The demo did not allow for changing weapons or switching between guns and swords. Different sections of the demo had preset weapons to use.) Exiting the starting rooms led players to an alley, and then out into a Neo-Tokyo-esque outdoor mall kind of area. Bright neon lights, paper lanterns and lots of other shiny destructable stuff to shoot at was all around. Some enemies were perched up high on balconies, and to better aim at them, the A button switched to a zoom aim mode. The zoom looked to be a little to strong for the level, but it still made it easier to pick off enemies that were farther away than a shaky hand could aim at.

Reloading guns required the press of any direction of the D-Pad. Earlier reports on how Red Steel would control indicated that pulling back the Wii remote would do this instead, but it's not the case in the E3 demo. This action did cause problems because of the positioning of the pad; the moving of the thumb higher up the controller causes controller movement, which can throw off the aiming cursor and even the camera view severely. Hopefully, this won't be an issue in the final game.

Crouching with the Z button (on the nunchaku) was also explained in this area. Finding and ducking behind cover was necessary at times due to incoming fire. It works as well moving and ducking as a standard FPS, although you do have the chance to get a spray of bullets out pretty quickly with the Wii remote. Yakuza in cars came into the scene, but a dozen bullets into the side of the vehicle causes a nice expolsion and shockwave effect, taking out any enemies in the radius and causing them to flop over (or fly though the air) like rag dolls.

Taking out all the enemies in the outdoor alley section led to a pachinko parlor inside another building. Here, the player character equips a shotgun, just as the next wave of enemies do. The tight quarters of the room forces up-close and personal action, and a shotgun is the pefect thing for that. It did get frantic inside, and fast respositioning of the aiming cursor did cause the controller to lose its center. Pausing movement gets it back again, but it's not the best to do that when two or three guys with shotguns are blasting you at near point-blank ranges.

Exiting the back door led to a final shooting room, this time with the pistol. The freeze shot mode was demoed in this area, with water-filled aquariums on either side of a line of thugs and their boss behind tables. Holding the A button freezes time, after which the player has a very long time (probably because it was a demo) to point and click with the B trigger where shots will be fired when time un-freezes (letting go of the A button). Freeze shot causes aiming boxes to appear on the hands of the shooting Yakuza. Targeting and hitting the boxes disarms the target, and hitting any other part of the body acts as a regular shot (unless it's in the head, then it's a killer). Disarming the boss causes everyone else in the room to surrender, which appears to be totally optional in the demo...he gets shot up anyway when machine gun fire comes in through the semi-transparent paper doors behind him.

The final section of the Red Steel demo was a boss fights of sorts against a shirtless and heavily-tatooed Yakuza with a steel sword. Our hero also has a sword, which must be drawn from its scabbard by an upward slashing motion. The fight was harder than than sparring session with wooden swords, as the enemy blocked more attacks and required the player to dodge and parry more attacks defensively. On top of that, it was much faster. All of the motions for moving to the sides with the analog stick, swiping the sword with the Wii remote and parrying with a flick of the nunchaku wrist clicked together extremely well. With not even five minutes with the game, many people were getting the quirks of the control scheme and understanding what was needed to win the sword battles.

The gunplay aspect of the game is what may take the most time adjusting to, however. It is possible to pick up and play the game without any prior knowledge or use of the Wii controller and be moving and looking and twisting your gun "gangsta style" in no time. (I did, my time with Red Steel was the first time I ever used the Wii controller.) Trying to coordinate looking, aiming, shooting, moving and going for cover with an unfamilar control setup is going to take a few tries before it becomes as second nature as using two analog sticks and 14 buttons on a traditional control pad. With practice (and a chair; the majority of the Wii demos were standing stations), it'll probably be easier to get a hold of the precision of shooting at stuff.

As a whole, the graphics of the game are nice. All of the booths are displaying games on nice, big, widescreen HDTVs (but in 480p, of course), Red Steel among them. It definitely looks a lot better than a GameCube game does, but it doesn't look quite as good as Xbox 360 games. The difference between some of the 360 games I've seen that are similar to Red Steel is a respectable one. Characters look realistic enough to see what they're wearing, what their face looks like, what kind of gun they're carrying, and the tattoos on their arms and such. There was a white cookie-cutter looking haze around the outside of some of the characters, but the demo really wasn't about how good the game looks. It's all about how the game plays.

It's an entirely new experience, playing Red Steel. It's too early to say if that experience is better or worse than what we're all used to, but based on the solid swordplay and the potential for the gunplay after the kinks are worked out, I think I like it.

Talkback

trip1eXMay 11, 2006

Thanks for the great write-up. You put Red Steel back on my launch list with the clarity of your impressions.

EasyCureMay 11, 2006

ditto. i cant wiat to try a 'freeze-shot' of my own. the one shown on the e3 demo was great. waving your hands down to make your enemies kneel on the floor is awesome and will be totally immersive. i can picture yelling "get down!" while doing so lol. looks like nodding 'yes' to questions won't be so silly after all either.

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Red Steel Box Art

Genre Action
Developer Ubisoft
Players1 - 4

Worldwide Releases

na: Red Steel
Release Nov 19, 2006
PublisherUbisoft
RatingTeen
jpn: Red Steel
Release Dec 02, 2006
PublisherUbisoft
Rating18+
eu: Red Steel
Release Dec 08, 2006
PublisherUbisoft
Rating16+
aus: Red Steel
Release Dec 07, 2006
PublisherUbisoft
RatingMature (15+)
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