Red Steel

Wii, Red Steel (2006) game

The debut Wii game I played to completion was this First Person Shooter/Sword-slasher. It had always stuck in my mind from the days of NGamer Magazine as something of interest should I ever get a Wii, and since it was incredibly cheap, was one of the first couple of titles I purchased. I'd like to say it did not disappoint, but I didn't have any expectations for it, it was a complete learning experience. Despite this, I would have to give it a thumbs down for too many irritations, the most heinous crime of which was realising how much of a step backward playing traditional games was with a movement-sensing control method. This was in fact the main reason I never got on the Wii bandwagon back when it came out: my cousin brought her console round and my fears were confirmed as she beat me at every game we tried - I was basically flailing around, unable to get used to the novel control interface that was so different from all my experiences dating back to when I first picked up a 'Joystick' with the Commodore 64! So my first impressions weren't good, and actually playing the Wii I realised it wasn't for me, but in recent years, now that so much time had passed and the console was cheap I was open to giving it another go, though my real motivation was to replace my kaput GameCube, and why not open up a new avenue of games at the same time? 'Red Steel' didn't do anything to make me think I was wrong not to buy a Wii back in the day as it was cumbersome or over-precise to aim and like being back in the Dark Ages of childhood's lack of coordination.

It may have been my equipment, perhaps the cheap Asian sensor bar I got off ebay was too unreliable, but sometimes I would find the input failing and sending the signal wrong so that I wound up turning around in circles unable to do anything to escape, which was extremely frustrating in the middle of a firefight! It felt like juggling eggs, so tricky was it to handle, the controls woeful compared to the precise, accurate and responsiveness of traditional control pads, that you're dropping an egg every few moments and eventually you have to make the trudging, inconvenient journey outside to the hen coop to get more eggs and start over again. In other words, sometimes the flaw would get so bad with the sight jiggling around and movement almost impossible that I'd have to quit out of the game (losing my progress in the level), to return to the Wii menu to change the sensitivity of the sensor bar and get those two white dots to be stable again. It happened far too many times for it to be an acceptable outcome. Having said that I did, with practice as is inevitable, improve my control, but even at the end of the game with hours of play time I could still not be as accurate, quick and precise as with a standard control stick. It was disappointing to find that there was no backup option to use a 'Cube Controller as some games had, such as 'Mario Kart,' as I could imagine the game being a little more enjoyable if you felt in control.

However, that would have negated the best element of the game: the sword-fighting. This was essentially the unique aspect of both this game and the Wii itself: to be able to move your remote around and have it respond on screen as a weapon. The game was careful not to overwhelm the player with multiple moves and by the end I felt quite competent in swordplay, feeling the rhythm of the combat, knowing when to strike, when to parry, when to sidestep to defeat the increasingly tough opponents you faced. It wasn't as responsive or realistic as actually responding to your exact movements like the baseball bat in 'Wii Sports,' but it did a good enough job of giving you a feeling of wielding a blade in combat. This was the one major success of the game, but it couldn't cover a multitude of flaws that multiplied the frustration levels of playing the game as a whole. While it was fun waving the arms around to slash and parry, these moments were more of a gimmick with only the occasional duel to interrupt the shooting, and even in this part of the gameplay there could be annoyances - the way the battle would pause if you or your opponent came too close to the edge of the 'arena' within which this fight took place, the CPU edging back towards the centre and ruining the rhythm of the fight, as well as stopping you from backing him into a corner. This wasn't as noticeable in earlier levels, but was a real pain in the cramped confines later on, although it may have been designed to be trickier in close quarters to match the increased learning curve.

As a whole, the game reminded me of the N64 Bond game 'The World Is Not Enough,' due to its linearity. That game had the occasional level that had more of a freeform approach, but 'Red Steel' was heavily structured and you didn't often have the choice to approach areas from any way except along the rigidly defined path. A major irritation was being unable to skip the cutscenes, and it became a twisted motivation to get to the next checkpoint just so I didn't have to sit through repetitions of all the talking. Not that they were badly designed - they had a comic book style to them, which although it didn't show off the graphical capabilities of the Wii, told the story functionally. But as I said, once viewed I had no need to see them again… and again. Impatience it may have been, but it added to the already longer loading times of these DVD-sized discs. In the past, Nintendo had cited loading times as one of the reasons for sticking with cartridges, and then the tiny optical discs of the 'Cube, so I'm not quite sure why they chose to go with the larger kind for the Wii. I only know that the loading times were very apparent, especially when you're itching to retry a level and you're not used to waiting so long. The limitations of the Wii were quite apparent throughout this game, though it'd be unfair not to praise things like the occasionally destructible scenery you could shoot up, like statues or wooden pillars hiding the enemy, though there were also so many of the usual gaming conventions that you can do 'this' but not 'that,' when it would be logical to have continuity.

There were also unforgivable technical flaws: on one mission I got almost to the end where I had to escape a factory before it blows up and I hit the checkpoint just as I died and so it saved me there, kept restarting me there and promptly killing me there! So I had to go back to an earlier part of the level to get out of it. Awful game design that would allow such a thing to happen, though this was one of the earliest titles on the system so no doubt it was going to have more issues than a game made when the console was bedded in. This still doesn't explain why they didn't include the option to skip dialogue - you'd fight through a room of enemies where they get shot and just run away or duck into cover, seemingly unaffected by bullets, then you'd eventually clear the painstakingly annoying room only to find yourself in a sword fight where you had to watch them go through the same dialogue every time - it really was a tension to desperately want to get to the next checkpoint so you don't have to sit through the same stuff again. And maybe it's only ten seconds, but it's still adding to the pent-up rage you're feeling with the inadequacies of control.

It became a wrathful experience that made me want to dash my remote through a window in anguish due to all those times when the signal went awry. I just wanted to get through the game so it'd be over and I could move onto something fun, but the percentage of game completion would creep up so slowly and the game was so irritating in making you replay bits that it seemed to take forever to get anywhere. If the controls had been perfect, like with a control pad, then it could have been a serviceable FPS, with an interesting side of sword fighting, but because of the linearity and frustrations it was dragged right down. The difficulty level certainly ramped up as it went on and my initial feeling of this being too easy was changed to the opposite, and the challenge, with the addition of a fair control scheme might have been a satisfying one, but if I don't have complete control over movement and where I'm shooting how can I rate my performance or feel I've achieved something? Rather than achievement at each new level's completion I didn't feel elated, just angry that I hadn't got even further and had done with it all! Even given the fairly varied locations with highlights being the weird 'haunted house' TV studio sequence and the castle levels at the end.

It was certainly a trying experience, and the excess of characters in the story didn't make it easy to follow and be invested in them. Interestingly, in contravention of usual gaming laws, the final level (sneaking into the villain's castle in the forest), was rather easy, as was the final sword fight with him. I'm assuming you can't beat your mentor Otori and thereby prevent him from killing the villain and with him the antidote that could have saved Otori's life from the poisoned blade he'd encountered a little earlier - a warning against taking revenge. Then again, I apparently only finished 76% of the game, which is always disappointing to see, so I don't know what you're supposed to do to increase it - get better ratings in missions? Learn all the training missions? Who knows, it doesn't tell you and it's not the sort of game I'd love to spend hours with eking out all its secrets. But I did find myself enjoying it more once the game was officially over and I went back to play a level to see if I could improve my rating and possibly push up the completion percentage. The final ignominy was the game didn't save my improved stats for that level! If there was one thing that might have clawed back some favour it would have been that, but no, they even failed to make the game work properly and I have no idea why it didn't record the improved performance. While each mission was available to select there was no way to return to the training missions - they really should have given that as one of the options, and a sword training facility or the shooting range would have worked well as something to go back to, aside from the main missions.

I could complain about a lack of sword fighting for two players and the ability to face all the opponents in the game as an extra to hone your skills with the blade, but that wasn't included and it felt like a sorry end to a game that showed flashes of potential, was atmospheric, not badly done visually or aurally, the sword-fighting pretty good when you got the hang of it, but just failed in so many ways, ultimately a mainly frustrating experience that shows the limitations of movement control for this type of game, as clever as it was to be able to point at the screen to shoot. It could be infuriating and even the sense of accomplishment when you became proficient at wearing down a sword opponent, less of an arcade and more of a tactical game, wasn't enough to stop the majority of it being too annoying, slow and frustrating - and I was surprised by the amount of swearing in a Nintendo sanctioned game. Although my final time was a little over eleven hours it was more like double or triple that as I found myself playing and replaying levels. Looking at the credits I didn't recognise any of the voice talent except for Keone Young who I knew from his Trek roles on 'DS9' and 'Enterprise,' which was a nice surprise. As an introduction to the ways of the Wii it didn't do much to inspire confidence and I have yet to find the game that makes me see it as anything more than a glorified 'Cube, though I'm sure other genres, represented by the likes of 'Super Mario Galaxy' and 'Wario Ware' will prove its worth eventually.

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