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31st Mar 2010 | 1,727 views
Red Steel 2
Red Steel 2 is the successor to the Wii launch title Red Steel that was met with mixed praise. The most frequent complaints with the first game were its horrible characters, lame plot, and broken sword play mechanics. All that has changed along with a revamped graphical style. Red Steel 2 drops the urban yakuza theme for one that is much more bizarre. Take The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; mix it with Seven Samurai and turn the clock about 20 or so years into the future and you have Red Steel 2's setting. While bizarre, you have to hand it to them for coming up with something interesting and new rather than giving you the same old theme other games have thoroughly explored. It's also interesting to note that spaghetti westerns were in fact inspired by samurai movies of the likes of Akira Kurosawa films and were meant to mimic their style for western audiences, this game seems to take note of that fact and blend the two themes into one as a sort of tribute a la Kill Bill.
As for the characters themselves they are a mix of the two themes as well. Your character is the lone survivor of the Kusagari clan. A clan of what the game calls “Swordslingers” that were killed off by the jackals in a nefarious plot hatched by an unknown enemy. Unlike in the first game your character actually talks this time around but lacks a name (yet another reference to the Man without a name trilogy.) You are aided in your quest for revenge by Jian, a Master of another clan who feels sympathy for the plight of your clan and in turn trains you in new moves and combos you acquire throughout the game, of which there are thankfully many. Other characters who help you are Tamiko an Asian women with a thick country-western accent who helps you by dubiously hacking the enemy's mainframes and Sheriff Judd who gives you some information on the enemy's intentions; and Songan, a business man who shares a common enemy with you. All these characters have their own safe spots where you can buy and upgrade equipment as well as pick up new missions.
The game progresses by completing main missions and the story is told mostly through action cut scenes and character dialogue cut-scenes in the safe zones. There are also side missions for every level that you don't have to complete but will want to so that you can make the money to buy the numerous upgrades for your equipment as well as new special attacks. The only other ways to make money in the game beyond missions are through sheriff stars that are placed around the map that you must shoot, tokens that are also preset on the map that you have to pick up, or through the most tedious of all methods: shooting/slicing through crates, boxes, and trash bags. Since the tokens/stars don't alone give you enough money to buy most of the upgrades, you'll want to do these missions anyways because breaking boxes for cash is really boring.
Perhaps the most exciting part of this game lies in the game-play. The shooting mechanics are solid but more importantly the sword play is perfect. This is the game Wii owners have been waiting for. The wiimotion+ really shines in this game and gives you a reason to buy the peripheral other than for Wii sports resort. You can slice using simply wrist twitches like most other games use, but this will result in weak hits. The harder you swing the more damage you do and to break through enemy armor or blocks you have to use full arm motions to achieve a strong hit. This results in a fun and satisfying experience that has not been available until now on any of the three consoles. The game also switches from swordplay to shooting without a hitch allowing you to slash at an enemy then look to the side and head-shot an oncoming enemy then switch back to apply a combo finisher on your original opponent without the control going haywire.
This fast paced action combines with the style of the game well. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this if you've seen the videos or the images but this game looks great. It ranks up there as one of the best looking games of the Wii and can even compete with games on the HD twins. Every time you make a strong attack with your sword you are treated to a very Kill Bill style slash mark across the enemy's body and dashes/dodges are accompanied by anime-esque lines of air around you. It's also boasts a very tight and well put together soundtrack that fits perfectly with the action and are do good justice to their Enio Morricone inspiration. The style and the setting together give you a unique world to explore that runs and a silky smooth 60 frames per second and really shows what can be done with the Wii's limited hardware. This doesn't come without it's occasional snags though. Every now and then the frame rate dips a little bit, and sometimes there are graphical glitches in displaying how much money you have after you spent some, these don't hamper the overall experience though and are mostly negligible.
The harshest things that can be said about the game are in it's story and characters. Don't expect to find a deep relationship or meaningful dialogue between anyone here. Story-wise it's pretty straightforward, they killed your people, now you're killing their people, yada yada yada. The setting is also entirely deserted except for your enemies and 3 allies throughout the whole game. No civilians or any such thing like that, which actually fits the theme a bit but doesn't help from keeping the world from feeling a bit empty. The game will last you about 10 to 12 hours with little incentive to go back into the world and replay and there is no multiplayer. But if you want a Wii First person adventure similar to Metroid Prime in controls but with a whole new twist, you will thoroughly enjoy this game.
Overall-8.5
Presentation-9.0
Game-play-9.0
Value-7.0
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pokeclaudel
posted 08/12/2012, 08:05
Hope the make a sequel for wii U. They should make it a tradition and change the setting again. Maybe futuristic or maybe even a world similar to dishonored. Message | Report |
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DieAppleDie
posted 23/10/2012, 03:44
fantastic energetic action one of my fav new games Message | Report |
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