Reviews// Red Steel (Wii)

In one way, Red Steel embodies the manner in which developers and publishers have eagerly embraced Nintendo’s Wii – it’s that rarest of games, an original effort from a third-party publisher that will hit the shops on a new console’s launch day. And with its mix of first-person shooting and swordplay, it puts forward a pretty good case for the versatile Wiimote’s virtues.

At a recent press event in Paris, Ubisoft rather bizarrely - but at least honestly - admitted to the attendant hacks that it had set out to create a rather clichéd, touristy Japanese ambience, and it has certainly succeeded in that aim.

The action starts in a hotel in LA where, with your Japanese girlfriend Miyu, you are about to meet the somewhat intimidating Mr Sato, your prospective father-in-law. Cleverly, Red Steel adjusts the Wiimote’s sensitivity to suit you by getting you to point at various fish in a huge tank. Naturally, a bunch of yakuza appear and attempt a hit on Mr Sato, who escapes with Miyu.

Control system
You pick up a gun and get a quick tutorial in how to use it. Red Steel makes permanent use of the nunchuk, which handles movement, with ducking and jumping assigned to its two buttons. The Wiimote lets you point, and shoot using the trigger on its underside.

You can also “focus” on an individual enemy by holding down the [A] button on the Wiimote, which stops you moving about. Thrusting the Wiimote towards the screen lets you zoom in this mode, which proves a touch fiddly. Right on the D-Pad triggers a reload; left changes weapons (you can carry two).

To open doors, you need to get close to them and point at them, at which point a green hand appears. A mere downward movement of the nunchuk opens them; the same system is used for kicking over tables to use as cover.

Shooting
In practice, the shooting system works pretty well – with movement assigned to the nunchuk joystick, it’s easy to strafe, and The enemy focus helps steady your hand when taking on distant enemies. You won’t want to use it in close-up, though, where it’s essential to keep moving. You swiftly find an Uzi and a shotgun, both fairly standard examples of such weapons.

The shotgun only takes six shells, though, so frequent reloading is a must. There is one annoying aspect of the shooting at increasing amounts of enemies which dominates the first level, though: the camera is fairly tight, and it can be difficult to locate your enemies. Red arrows on screen are supposed to show where fire is coming from, but they simply don’t work. When you reload, the Wiimote speaker plays a reloading noise, which is a cute touch.