Red Steel for Wii Reviews by Gamers

Graphically On-Par w/ Early PS2/Original XBox Titles (HALO-1). Awkward & Clunky Controls. Enemy AI seems DENSE & SLOW; Feels like you're fighting against FORREST GUMP. Cliche Racial Stereotyping. Swordfighting is AWFUL.
==Effort/Creativity: B+ ==Execution/Delivery: D-

I've gamed on almost every home console since Intelivision, Collecovision, Atari2600, etc. Yes, I am a 30 Year Old Hardcore Gamer. I've played some pretty bad games through the years, and this one is somewhere near the bottom. Granted, I've played worse, but this one IS pretty bad.

First off, I think part of the problem is how much this game was hyped, between the E3, Tokyo Game Show, etc. I was, as many of you were, led to believe that RED STEEL would be the -PREMIER- Launch Title for the Nintendo Wii. I recall seeing video clips of intuitive Sword Fighting with the Wii-mote, and precision shooting with the pointer. I also recall seeing graphics that looked at least a LITTLE better than this, even though it WAS still in the developmental stages. Now I look at this game, and see inferior graphics (inferior to, for example, BLACK for the original Xbox; or perhaps similar to the original HALF-LIFE that was ported to the PS2).

Now, for the controls: Have you ever played Warcraft, Age of Empires, or maybe Command & Conqure? Moving the camera is very similar to these classic titles: bounce the pointer off the edge of the screen to slide it around. VERY awkward this time around. After 5-6 hours of gameplay, I was -STILL- unable to just "point & click" to shoot. I found myself all too often going from looking at the SKY, to the GROUND, back to the SKY, and then somewhere WAY off to the side while trying to "turn" to take a shot. The Swordfighting was a selling point for me at E3/TGS, but now I found the swordplay to be inaccurate, unresponsive at times, and generally annoying.

Enemy AI seems FORREST GUMP'ish; standing still, WAITING to be shot at.

All in all, V-E-R-Y disappointing.