• Summary

• Reviews

• News
• Images
• Videos
• Downloads
• Hints & Cheats

By Keith B (22nd Mar 2007)

Red Steel is in many ways a First Person Shooter showcase for the Wii console, Remote, and Nunchuk. Problem is, though, that the showcase, while quite beautiful, exhibits other rather lackluster goods: an already painfully familiar plot, uninventive swordplay, and limited interactive environments. Sure, Red Steel is good, just not good enough.

Review:

Duck Hunt was an incredible game. No one will deny that. Sure, it looks unsophisticated, even trite, by today's standards, and that plastic, unforgiving, and sometimes painful-to-fire gun rarely gave you the desperado precision you fantasized about when lying in bed at night. But something then felt unbelievably fresh and inventive about Duck Hunt: you shot a plastic gun at a screen one second and had dead duck the next. How I longed for that feeling of energetic inventiveness while playing Red Steel, Ubisoft's bland answer to the First Person Shooter challenge posed by the Wii.

For starters, the game, set predominantly in Tokyo, makes tiresomely conspicuous use of rather stereotypical Japanese iconography. Those heavily tattooed mafioso, the Yakuza led by a headstrong and impetuous young Oyabun, show up, as do ancient and seemingly interminable interfamilial grudges; there's the usual hunt for a katana sword of inestimable value and an ineluctable Geisha-district mother bawd, this time the unfortunately named Mama San; and then there's you, Scott Monroe, the naïve initiate, whisked away from your cushy Los Angeles life and forced into a seedy underground world in hopes of bridging warring clans, fulfilling a dying man's wish, and saving your Yakuza-kidnapped fiancée. Added to this is a ham-fisted dose of all too familiar revenge-film lore. First, there's the insider-outsider figure who knows all and is willing to tell: in this case he's an entrepreneur, Henry Tanner, who owns a nightclub popular with the Yakuza. Second, there's the fabled training by an elective pariah: as you might expect, this figure is played by a former Yakuza member and sword-fighting master. This galumphing game-designer complacency runs a little thin after a while: simply put, we've seen these vapid cultural cliches and plodding narrative commonplaces too many times. As a result, everything about the game feels a bit old hat, maybe even painfully uninspired.

Admittedly, though, Red Steel isn't cinéma verité; it's a video game and, to that end, it more or less does its job. Making generally intelligent use of the Wiimote and Nunchuk, Red Steel forces the player physically inside the game. (Luckily, players can adjust the sensitivity of the controllers throughout the game-a feature one laments the absence of during other Wii experiences.) The Wiimote functions well as a guide, moving the gun, and your vision, across the screen (though sometimes with too much difficulty, forcing you to gesture like a madman nearly halfway across the screen in order to move an inch). The Nunchuk is employed in tandem with the Wiimote, but is used primarily like the hired help: like a maid, its main purpose is to pick things up; like a butler, to usher you along. One assumes that if the game required cooking, the ringing of dinner bells, or the answering of doors, the Nunchuk would be ready at your beck and call, wearing black and white and speaking in a British accent. In all fairness, the sword fighting can be a lot of fun, especially when deflecting your opponent's blows. But soon you realize that thrust, parry, and block-while perfectly acceptable moves for fencing-are unfortunately your only sword-fighting gestures in the game, proving repetitive and dull after but a few steel-bladed encounters.

Visually Red Steel is definitely at the high end of the Wii's capabilities (though much of its sometimes stunning beauty is lost to tedious split-screen multi-player action). Settings are generally beautifully arranged and decorated-especially in Japan-if at times the more skeptical might wonder if every Japanese person owns paper lamps, kimonos, and bonsai trees. Unfortunately, though, too many of these visual pleasures stay just that: Scott Monroe's ability to interact with his environment is limited. Not all fish tanks are implodable, not all tables can be upturned in search of impromptu bullet shields. It's all fine and dandy when a door is locked; but when it looks like a door, it should act like one rather than an anti-functionalist calico. Too often I felt like I was walking through an exceptionally lifelike Wonders of Tokyo digital museum exhibit rather than an interactive environment where people lived, fought, and died. This is particularly disappointing considering how much work was put into making the game's controllers highly interactive, even pragmatic. The effect itself is disappointingly surreal.

Red Steel likewise possesses an incredibly vivid aural landscape. From the muffled voices in the distance to the creaks and groans of the buildings you wander and hunt, the sounds and a feeling of unease never quite leave the game. This imminent sense of something ominous forever awaiting you around the nearest bend, from above or below or any which direction you turn, is only heightened by the game's film-quality score. There can be little doubt that, rather than tastelessly rehashing the familiar sounds of the orient (the offensively omnipresent reed pipes and pan flutes and jaw harps so popular with games set in Asia and produced in the West), Ubisoft has put together an original score chocked full of intelligently timed climaxes and gradually intensifying percussive rhythms well worthy of a first rate film-regardless of locale. It's always a pleasant surprise to end a level in an Asian-set video game without the seemingly obligatory ringing of a gong.

Strangely, probably one of the nicest features of the game is your ability not to kill people. So rarely are we given the choice between mindless, mandatory killing and elective manslaughter that it's hard to believe that allowing unarmed enemies to go free would ever be a humane or even wise choice. Just a wave of the hand will usher the weaponless to the ground or out of scene. Sometimes, even in the world of gaming, less is more.

My main problem with the Red Steel, though, is more likely my problem with First Person Shooter (FPS) games in general: repetition. With the exception of the sword, and the organic feel of the controls, nothing about Red Steel is terribly original. Sure, there's a sluggish story line, some beautiful if prohibitive visuals, and some good music, but FPSs are redundant by definition: take one part first person, one part shooter, add spice (here it's wasabi), and mix. The real challenge FPS games face is not even console or controller specific; it's the gaming industry's unwillingness to stop producing such unflaggingly genre-specific titles. The strength of Rayman's Raving Rabbids, beyond its sense of humour, one might argue, is the extent to which it melds genres, admirably diversifying the entire playing experience. After few hours, Red Steel just starts to feel like every other shoot-‘em-up game you've seen and played a million times-the only difference, really, is its rice-paper wrapper.

Decked flashily in Heinz brand teriyaki sauce, this game is little more than a plate of flavourless FPS leftovers. Simply put, Red Steel isn't designer sushi-it's just cold fish.