Red Steel 2, a game which is a sequel only in name to one of the first Wii shooters which got 'meh' reviews. I only briefly played the multiplayer of the first one, so it doesn't really count. Red Steel 2 is a game that feels like it benefited from a longer development cycle. The game has style. No doubts about that. It takes some wild west, mixes it with ninjas, samurai and Japanese lore and throws some steam and cyberpunk in. Story is pretty basic, but there's no complaints about it. You're the last of your kind, learn the secrets of your clanand go for revenge!
The story severs as a backbone to take you to different locations, which sadly don't quite leave the Wild West/Japanese style. There's no radical winter level or evergreen forest level. Game play wise Red Steel 2 is the best sword fighter game on the market. The game also has a wonderful shooting aspect to it and the sword and gun play flow seamlessly together. The game feels like it was heavily inspired by Metroid Prime, especially the last chapter 3: Corruption with it's shooting and some puzzles. While Prime 3 had a lot more variety of puzzles Red Steel 2 does a good job of taking hints on how to make FPS or FPA work on the Nintendo Wii. Red Steel 2 also takes the loading doors from the Prime series as well, but whatever, it works. The game does have a few weak points, some of the missions feel very similar in style. It's usually Get To Point A, but you have to go to Point B and unlock/cut/something to there first. While on the way be on the look out for safes to crack, wanted posters to destroy and random encounters. The game also has several hidden tokens to find and shoot, but doesn't tell you how many there are. There's also no New Game + option where you could start again with all your upgrades, thus making money hunting in the last level completely useless because there's no shops at all. The game also gives you a list of all the moves you've learnt.. but doesn't tell you how to pull them off or gives you a place to practice them. The dojo would have been perfect for this. Overall with an additional 3 weeks (or less!) of development to put those last couple of complaints could have made this game a solid A, but as it is, it's still a solid B, lots of fun, great use of the motion controls and style.
