10 out of 11(91%)reviewers recommend this product.
Product Reviews
Overall rating
4/ 5
Gameplay
4/ 5
Graphics
4/ 5
Sound
4/ 5
Lasting Appeal
4/ 5
BlakLite1
fromEaston, PA
This game is perfect for:hardcore gamers
Ubisoft redeems itself for its debut Wii shooter
PostedOctober 18, 2011
When I learned that Red Steel 2 didn't sell nearly as well as it could have, I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. After all, the original Red Steel was Ubisoft's train wreck debut title for the Wii. Who would want a sequel to that sorry excuse for an FPS? Frankly, I don't want one either. Surprising as it sounds, calling Red Steel 2 a sequel to anything would be a misinformed insult. For starters, Red Steel 2 doesn't suck. In fact, it's a bona fide high-quality title that puts countless first-person Wii titles to shame. On top of that, it's not even correct to call this a shooter--it's an action game that happens to have been built around a first-person perspective. Before I get into gameplay, let's talk about the presentation, starting with the visuals. Take one look at the world of Red Steel 2, and prepare to spend the next few days looking for your jaw after it drops to the floor. If someone walks in on you while you're playing and mistakenly thinks you're playing and Xbox 360 or PS3 game, don't be surprised. Every inch of the game is crafted in a gorgeously stylized comic-book feel, with heavily defined lines and a brilliant color palette. But that's only a sliver of the game's true style. Literally everything in Red Steel 2--the environments, characters, enemies, and even the soundtrack--is a magnificently imaginative and original blend of both modern and traditional Western and Eastern themes and styles. Bandits wear Japanese hakama trousers and leather jackets and attack you with swords that look like a cross between a machete and a katana; wild-west saloons and shantytowns, Chinese-castle structures, and Tokyo-esque glowing signs mesh together like you've never imagined; harmonies of flute, shamisen, guitar, and jaw harp compose a soundtrack that's worth falling in love with. The game's beauty is further enhanced by the silky-smooth 60-fps frame rate that hiccups only occasionally during transitions between areas. The overall style is plenty enough to undermine the forgivably cheesy voice acting and less-than-exceptional story, but then again, you won't care. now on to gameplay. What really made Red Steel suck was its control scheme that overused and overestimated the Wii remote's motion-sensing capabilities and thus ended up feeling awkward and clumsy. Red Steel 2 brings controls that are smooth and comfortable. Despite lacking custom button commands, Red Steel 2 takes inspiration from High Voltage Software's The Conduit and offers players even more immense and precise control customization that lets you find the perfect match for your aiming and motion-sensing preferences. You can fine tune everything including aiming sensitivity, pointer smoothing, horizontal and vertical turn speed and responsiveness, inner and outer bounding boxes, and even swing sensitivity. Not to mention that you can see these changes take effect in real-time as you make them. The Wii MotionPlus is incorporated into the game brilliantly. The feel of wielding a real sword exceeds that of Wii Sports Resort, mostly because the game does a better job of keeping track of how you're holding the remote. There are also a few action-prompt events that really exploit what that little white plug-in can do without ever feeling overused. All of this comes together in the combat system, which employs an excellent targeting system that lets you keep track of who's attacking you and when. Many other games that invoke first-person melee combat often feel clunky and make it difficult to know what you're slashing at. The mix of swordplay and gunplay let you approach a battle in variety of ways, from keeping your distance and looking for openings to charging in and wearing your opponent down. Switching between the two is a seamless matter of pointing and pulling the trigger to draw your gun and simply swinging to draw your sword. Playing on the lowest difficulty setting lets you toy and experiment with your enemies, whereas the aggressive and engaging A.I. on the higher difficulty settings keeps things from getting stale. Unlocking new moves and experimenting with finisher moves is incredibly fun and satisfying, and the incredible fluidity between the different moves you can perform means you'll rarely feel restricted from doing what you want when you want to by a canned animation. When you're not fighting, there's a decent amount of exploration that affords you the chance to get lost in the incredible visuals or just find tons of random stuff to break and collect cash from. There are a few minor bugs, but it took me more than one playthrough to take notice of them. Game progression is semi-linear, which means you'll get some areas to explore until you permanently leave them (which the game kindly warns you about before you do so) as well as areas that are exclusively linear. My biggest disappointment is the game's length, clocking in at around 10 to 15 hours. There's a Challenge mode that lets you go back and play individual levels with your upgraded character, but this mode unfortunately doesn't let you purchase any upgrades you may have missed in addition to making you play the tutorials again. But that's really the big thing that I didn't like about Red Steel 2; it left me wanting more. That's not to say that I didn't really enjoy the experience enough to make me say that you will too. In my opinion, Ubisoft's biggest mistake was naming it Red Steel 2. Did they want to apologize for Red Steel? Did they want to realize the kind of vision they had for a hardcore motion-based game? Whatever their reason, don't let the title scare you. The amount of content may not make it purchase-worthy for some players, but I dare you to find someone who finds this game anywhere near as sucky as Red Steel.
3 of 3 found this review helpful.
Overall rating
5/ 5
Gameplay
5/ 5
Graphics
5/ 5
Sound
5/ 5
Lasting Appeal
5/ 5
amzing93274WiiandDSFan
fromUSA
Reds still 2
PostedOctober 16, 2011
its a Awsome Action game with good COncrolls and Art still i love it! Lots of guns and all. way better than the ferst one!
Overall rating
5/ 5
Gameplay
5/ 5
Graphics
5/ 5
Sound
5/ 5
Lasting Appeal
4/ 5
CrunchTehLunch
fromnew york, NY
This game is perfect for:hardcore gamers
THE coolest wii shooter i have ever played!
PostedOctober 9, 2011
this game is probably THE coolest game i EVER played ever! the fps sword games play is sooo sick. the controls are really easy and you keep learning more new cool moves which are basicallly different ways to kill enemies besides shooting and slicing. once you get al of the moves, you are almost unstoppable. you look like a ninja pro with all teh fancy moves. you get four classic cowboy weapons too. you can upgrade each of them to better harness their unique abilities like knockback rapid fire targeting lock and explosive rounds. i got the game in early august and it is october and i still havent finished it and im a pretty hardcore gamer but it's a wii so not as much as on my xbox 360. the story is okay... but the gameplay and cutscenes are sweeeet. over all this game is probably the coolest game i have ever played on any system.
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zombiekiller1
This game is perfect for:hardcore gamers
awsome
PostedJuly 21, 2011
i do not have this game but i saw my uncle play it and i thought it was the best game i have seen. i will soon get the game and am really looking forward to getting it because i have read so many good reviews about this game.
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