Updated: Red Steel 2 on MotionPlus: A Huge Risk

Ubisoft is betting really, really big on the Wii's MotionPlus peripheral with Red Steel 2. So big that the game's creative director, Jason Vandenberghe, has said that, "gameplay simply isn’t there" without the performance-enhancing peripheral.

This, by anyone's standard, is a pretty big gamble. Vandenberghe certainly thinks so, having admitted that Ubisoft is basically flying blind. “It’s a huge risk. We have no idea what the penetration rate for Wii MotionPlus will be. We assume high. We would like it to be high. I would love to say to you that it’ll be compatible with just a regular controller, but the gameplay simply isn’t there without MotionPlus. That core experience just isn’t there without it”, he said.

SPOnG is all for MotionPlus in Red Steel 2. With all the swordplay involved it could mean the difference between an averagely-received game (like the first one) and a knee-trembling, swashbuckling, pant-wetting experience. Still, putting everything on a peripheral which you've got no idea what the take-up will be like for is a staggering risk. Still, fortune favours the brave and all that...

SPOnG tried out MotionPlus alongside some of EA's sports titles not so long back. Read what we found here.

Update: Peeling back any doubt on whether Red Steel 2 will work without MotionPlus, a Ubisoft rep has told SPOnG, "We can confirm that the game is designed to only work with the Wii MotionPlus, as the MotionPlus features are key to the RS2 gameplay experience."

^{Source: Nintendo Power via Nintendo Dpad}