Red Steel was one of the most anticipated games for Wii. Ubisoft promised us a great game that will “reinvent” the FPS on Wii. The game is far from being something out of ordinary but it has quite a few good parts.

Let's start with the beginning (why does everyone want to start from the beginning all the time anyway?). You play an American guy named Scott, who loves the daughter of a big Yakuza mobster. One day when you 're about to meet her father and ask for permission to marry his daughter, things get an ugly twist. A rival clan sets up an assassination attempt on his life. From now on, the gun and sword become your best friends as you seek the villains that tried to hurt your future wife and her father. I guess nobody messes with “the family”!

In this quest for revenge, all the basic moves and actions are taught to you in the game as you progress, as well the guns and sword control. You move with the Nunchuck's analog control stick, aim and shoot with the Wii remote. The controls are very well implemented... since it's all in your hands, easy actions like reloading, picking up weapons, knock a table to duck after or opening doors are done by a swing of the Nunchuck control. It might take a while to adapt to the movement sensitivity, but there are three settings to help you there. Anyway be prepared to find yourself looking at the wall or spin around many times until you master the controls.

The samurai within

With such a name for this game, Red Steel, we expected a lot of sword fighting and lots of blood. That isn't quite right. From the beginning you start shooting hordes of enemies with all kind of weapons. Every now and then a guy with a sword will challenge you and of course you can't shoot him as you did to his friends. That'll be too easy. So you take your sword and start to swing it like crazy, because anyway you swing it will be the same thing. At lower levels it's enough to dodge and swing the sword to make a hit but the changes of making that hit will grow slimmer as you advance in the game. After you defeat an adversary, you can spare his life and win respect points, or cut his head (in theory - he just drops down and dies, nothing visually happens) and it's end of the story for him. These battles are way too repetitive and placed after massive battles with a bunch of simple factory workers armed to the teeth. Ain't that funny?
However the shooting part is great. What I mean is that with any gun you have you can zoom in. A lot. Pressing the “A” button will auto-aim and moving the Wiimote towards the screen will zoom in for a greater shoot between the eyes. There are a lot of game in which you can perform a head-shot but nothing compares with the feeling that you actually pointed the spot where the bullet should hit.

If you bring your friends over for a multiplayer session, 3 modes are available to you:

Deathmatch (everybody for himself)
Team Deathmatch (2 vs 2) and
Killer mode ( every player receives a mission – James Bond style)
The game suffers from the graphic engine and we are “blessed” with lots of pale textures. The story is told with the help of some storyboard drawings and some cut-scenes that don't impress by anything.

The sounds are also not that great. Between the voice acting that hurts your ears and the faded sound effects, the only remarkable thing is the music that takes you to ancient Japan, when the gang wars were something common.

Red Steel might not be the best of the best on the FPS market through its lack of graphic design and sound but the action is fun and catchy. If you give it a chance it might grow on you. Nevertheless Ubisoft tried to do something spectacular and I hope that more developers will bring FPS games on the Wii.

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Gameplay: 68


The game has its moments, but the story and the characters give almost nothing to the player.


Graphics: 62


Red Steel has a lot of potential, but the graphics aren't there.


Sound: 62


Nothing special except for the music and the funny voice acting of Japanese-some-sort-of-English.


Multiplayer: 75


Good or bad. It's somehow confusing having 4 players on the same console and stressing controlling your character but in the same time exciting and fun.