Red Steel

by Gregory Moffett

I’m fairly certain that the first images shown of Red Steel on Wii was the first time I ever heard the term ‘bullshot’. Just as today’s celebrities are often airbrushed and photoshopped beyond all recognition in the latest magazines, Ubisoft’s first game to showcase their commitment to Nintendo’s revolutionary console was presented in a way to make it look considerably better than it actually did.

To be fair, the Wii was never about spectacular graphics and wasn’t seen as a direct competitor to the PS3 and XBOX 360, not even by Nintendo themselves. Having already been blown away by the new motion controller a couple of weeks earlier during countless hours with Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and even Wii Play (well, we did need a second Wii Remote), Christmas in 2006 was to provide yet another new way to play with the intriguing new first-person shooter, Red Steel.

Not only was there shooting, there was also the promise of swordplay, something that would surely feel incredible with the intuitive new controller.

Reading reviews in magazines before the launch of the Wii highlighted some concerns certain people had about the controls and it was claimed that they could be quite awkward. I already had an idea in my head about how it would feel to play such a game, aiming and shooting effortlessly with the Wii Remote whilst controlling my character with the Nunchuk. To my delight, it felt almost exactly as envisaged leaving me with little to no learning curve when jumping into the game for the first time.

The sword fighting may have turned out to be extremely limited and, therefore, disappointing, with questionable responsiveness at times, but the shooting was satisfying. Checkpoints, whilst definitely necessary, were irritating due to forcing the game to freeze for a few seconds every so often but the overall experience was one that was highly enjoyable and I was delighted to have a game that provided contrast to my launch purchases.

After years of fun with Goldeneye’s multiplayer and, to an extent, TimeSplitters 2, Red Steel fell short in this area as the 4-Player mode was only ever sampled briefly and somewhat brushed aside due to its inadequacies.



In fact, going back to the game now doesn’t exactly show Red Steel in a good light as the deficiencies are more apparent now than they ever were almost a decade ago. In a post Metroid Prime 3: Corruption world, the aiming and turning now feel quite unwieldy whilst the creation of the Wii Motion Plus enabled Skyward Sword only further underlines how poor the swordplay was in this game.

I’d be reluctant to criticize Red Steel too heavily as I absolutely did enjoy and appreciate it when I received it in Christmas 2006. However, whilst Father Christmas may have been very kind that particular year, Father Time has been substantially less generous to Red Steel.