Red Steel 2

Red Steel was balls. It maybe unfairly had the collective weight of the Nintendo fanbase pushing down on it (hence its release as a launch title, when its mechanics were anything but polished), but the fact remains: it was a terrible game.

Yet, it was still a pretty fun one sometimes. Perhaps it was its over the top use of B-movie tropes or maybe it was the ludicrously fun multiplayer (terrible pointer controls aside, it could have come close to being the Wii's Goldeneye), but if you set your expectations real low, you could scrape by with some fun. I got the original Red Steel for $5 last year, and that seemed about right.

So now comes Red Steel 2, and just like with the last game, there's a lot of hype around this game. While I'm hardly the world's biggest first-person shooter fan, having not really properly played through one since the days of Half-Life, I can see Red Steel 2 for what it is: a really fun action game. Unfortunately for RS2, the FPS market has hit a saturation point, and the addition of sword play to the mix isn't enough to topple the more cinematic experiences of what many consider the best FPSs on the market.

Lest you worry about Red Steel 2 being a continuation of the "world" of Red Steel, it's not. In fact, pretty much the only thing the two games have in common is the combination of shooting and swordplay. In RS2, you play as a nameless cowboy who's out for justice in a spaghetti Western/modern Japanese mashup city. While this setting is kind of cool, you don't get the same feeling of the city being of any actual importance as you would in, say, No More Heroes, where its mashup city actually mattered. In RS2, the city is just an empty vessel for you to wreak mayhem in.

The story, too, is a little weak. It feels like a game from the Sega Genesis, but with shiny new, nearly 360 worthy 3D graphics over top of its worn out, cliche-ridden frame. Don't expect your character to develop or to meet anyone approaching believability – this is still squarely in B-movie territory, but now with this renewed sense of self-importance.

To the people who are in the market for this sort of thing, though, Red Steel 2 could almost certainly be characterized as being a total blast. For one, the actual mechanics work this time. Hallelujah! Now you don't feel like a hippo on downers – you feel like the sprightly killing machine that you should have the first time. The pointer controls have been revamped, but more importantly, the sword play is actually fun. With the addition of Wii MotionPlus, all of your swipes and jabs are accurately modeled, and the strength of your blows plays an integral part in the proceedings. It's a game that demands that you get off of your couch and actually simulate the real thing, and that's sort of been the promise of the Red Steel franchise since day one. Easily the most satisfying mechanic in the game is to pop your enemy up in the air with an uppercut of your sword, then pull out your gun and juggle him in the air.

One element of the game that few people seemingly talk about, but I've been totally impressed with, is how this feels like a true first-person experience. I've played so many FPSs where the "camera" stays totally still and level depending on how you're looking in the game, and in Red Steel 2, it bobs and weaves incredibly realistically. When you spin around with your sword, your "head" swings around with it. When you plunge your sword into a foe's body, your head swoops down and in. When you run up a ladder, the way the camera moves makes it feel like you're actually moving up it, and not "gliding" up the ladder like in so many other games. This, more than the mechanics, is Red Steel 2's greatest feat.

Still, all of these fun mechanics can't make up for the fact that this is just another FPS, and not an awe-inspiring one like a Bioshock or a Half-Life (I don't really see why these sorts of games can't come to the Wii either, by the way. There's this perceived notion that people on the Wii can't handle longer narratives, which, judging by the success of Twilight Princess, is totally false. And the pointer controls are so, so much better suited to shooting than a dual analog controller. I know it's all about the graphics, but still) (not that I'm advocating for more FPSs in general, as I'm kind of sick of them and there's a glut of them and assuredly more down the pipeline). There's this sort of disjointedness from the fact that you have to pick and choose your missions from a bulletin board that really kills any narrative continuity (even if the narrative is terrible). The game then becomes entirely about its mechanics, which thankfully are quite fun and well-done, but aren't enough to make an entire game out of. I'd advise coming into this one with the expectation that your mind will remain completely unblown, and treat it like the somewhat shallow sword-toy that it is, and maybe you'll have fun with it.

Still, those sword-finisher moves are pretty cool.