I was not a fan of the first Red Steel.  I think that it was a great idea, but it’s execution didn’t work for me.  I was constantly battling the control – I admit, it was a very new way of game play – but I just couldn’t take it and I put the game down and never went back to it.  Oddly enough, I was excited to hear that Ubisoft was at it again with Red Steel 2.  I was even more excited to hear that it was designed specifically for Wii Motion Plus, the new and improved control system for the Wii.  I’m glad they went back to it using the new Motion Plus controls.

I got a chance to play the full demo at the Nintendo booth on the E3 show floor.  The setting is different – you now find yourself in the desert and  you are armed with only a revolver.  Shooting in this game was never easier – although I’m still a little crazy with aiming the remote at the screen.  Because there were so many Wii remotes in the area, we were informed that during the demo we would have to stop and point the Wii remote at the middle of the screen to reset it, in case of interference.  I did have to do this several times during the demo and I will not use that against the game in this review.

The level walked you through the mechanics of shooting and moving through the level and the objective was to find your sword.  Once you found it, it walked you through how to use it to damage foes and how to block their attacks.  The gun was pretty self explanatory – just aim and pull the trigger.  Sword play was also quite intuitive.  You can do light and strong attacks, all gauged by how hard you swing the Wii remote.  You also get a visual reference with a blue slash for a light attack and a red slash for the strong attacks.  Using the sword to block your opponents attacks is key so you will want to master those quickly.  Again, blocking is very easy and intuitive – simply holding the Wii remote vertically or horizontally will block accordingly.  You can even evade attacks at the press of a button.  There is a lot going on but everything feels quite natural.

I went through the level and even got to the boss battle at the end and of course, I whipped his ass.    The controls will take a little getting used to especially if you are not used to playing FPS games with the Wii remote.  As for the rest of the game, the art style is pleasing and uses a cel shaded style which works well on the Wii.

Red Steel 2 will come out exclusively for the Wii later this year and will come bundled with Wii Motion Plus.

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