side from Zelda, Red Steel may be the most-anticipated Wii launch title. Unlike our boy in the green tights, this game’s doesn’t fully deliver on its promise.
Red Steel follows the story of Scott Monroe, an everyman who goes with his fiancé to meet her father at a fancy restaurant. It turns out daddy has ties to organized crime, and when a group of Yakuza kidnap your special lady-friend and wound your future father-in-law, its up to you to get her back. See what happens when you date a gangster’s daughter?
Most of the game’s levels follow the standard FPS formula – shoot enemies who flow to predetermined cover locations, rinse and repeat. The swordfights break up this monotony, but in the end these also suffer from repetition. Thankfully, the forgiving damage system and harebrained enemy AI are often enough to keep you moving through the game.
Compared to the sloppy Wii controls of Call of Duty 3, Red Steel feels like an everyday trip to the gun range. The reticle adeptly follows your movements to track enemies moving through the environments, and the focus targeting works well. The zoom feature, while clunky at first, eventually responds fluidly through practice. The only complaint I have is with the auto-targeting, which redirects your reticle slightly whenever the targeted enemy moves.
Most of Red Steel’s faults lie with the game’s presentation. Enemies shout annoying obscenities in your direction during every firefight, the cheesy score is bad enough to incite chuckles, and the jaggy graphics look worse than many Xbox and PlayStation 2 games.
I would also like to point out that Red Steel is the proud owner of the most homoerotic shootout scene in video game history (not that there is anything wrong with that). When you enter a bathhouse while hunting for information about your girlfriend’s abduction, your welcoming committee is a band of half-naked men dressed only in towels who chase you with shotguns through the inviting hot tubs and steamy saunas. This level is quickly followed by a firefight in a carwash. I’m not making this stuff up.