NGamer Issue 4

The katana is out of the bag. Find out why Red Steel has to be played on launch day.

Yakuzas are calm and collected. Gamers wanting to play as them are not. Every game show glimpse of Red Steel was met with nervous chatter over control, graphics and griping about sword grip. Forget the glimpses. Only by playing the game as it was meant to be played, from start to finish, could you ever appreciate just how fun, exciting and most importantly, rightRed Steel actually feels.

Aim to please

Getting your first gun in Red Steel is a defining moment for the Wii. See an enemy? Then aim at him. No manual aim button, no analogue stick tweaking to align sights on a soon to be grave-occupier; all die by your hand and your hand alone. It doesn't feel like you're directing a marksman; you are the marksman. And it feels great.

It's liquid movement. No longer burdened by dragging a sluggish crosshair, you can arc Uzi fire as you see fit. We found ourselves at first just emptying rounds and rounds into the environments, simply satisfied to be completely in control. It's a massive improvement on previous console FPS control, but it's an improvement that requires you to forget some of what you already know. Luckily, this relearning process isn't a chore. Finding ways to curb any initial cackhandedness and working out how to translate your old dog tricks with this fresh new pup of a control scheme is a delightful treat.

Like swords? Iaido!

Swordplay isn't the freeform slash-a-thon some were hoping for, but the system used is sensible and makes for some thrilling encounters. The fights feel highly choreographed: parrying blades spark off one another sending both fighters stumbling under the impact; the fluidly animated foes dance between your swipes, launching into you with a selection of blows that even Uma Thurman would raise an eyebrow at.

In one clever section your swords are stolen from you and you have to make use of a mannequin's wooden replica. With only one sword you can't parry or deflect, forcing the normally more defensive player to develop their aggressive bloodlust from scratch.

Lights, katana, action

Boss duels are pretty spectacular. You can't help but grin as you step out into a pagoda atop a castle, rain lashing the arena, with lightning explodind across the sky - ready to face a ninja with an instant kill poison blade. Worlds away from the quiet sword fights of films such as Hero, Red Steel loves the Hollywood aesthetic.

It's more movie-like than any actual movie licensed title we've played in a long time. A shotgun battle in a skyscraper lobby had us running between pillars as they disintegrated under heavy fire, tiles and plaster work littering the marble floor. Activate time-slowing focus mode and voila: a five minute fight better than the entirety of Enter the Matrix. And during a shootout on an airfield luggage conveyor belt, a la John McClane in Die Hard 2, we could swear we heard crying. Oh yes. It was Die Hard Vendetta weeping its weak, rubbish eyes out.

Stoke your pipes

Gunplay is extremely explosive stuff, literally, at times. Entering a room snaked with pipes, all labelled highly explosive, one misplaced shotgun blast bursts them open with a cyanic mushroom cloud, toasting the poor saps nearby. Flood the room with gunmen and you have a fiendishly explosive set piece; to avoid frying we had to run like crazy from non-ruptured pipes, whilst trying to shoot out pipes near the enemy. It looked great, but was pretty unforgiving, and as the game filled with propane, we were filled with profane mutterings.

Each sizable level is packed with location change. One mission sees you chasing a gang member through a kitchen, breaking into a ship, getting taken hostage and having to escape again. Forget those ridiculous car adverts - these levels are mini adventures every time.

Barmy of one

It's not all macho action, and can be surprisingly amusing. Like when you're fighting in a steam filled sauna against assassins with only towels and Uzis to cover their modesty. Or how about when you're sword fighting tarty geisha girls, learning the focus ability from a crazy barfly, or shooting at a janitor to learn how to slow time? The peak of this inspired silliness appears in the casino level - a piece of level and character design so unexpected that it's worth playing just to see it. We won't give it away, but it involves freakish bunnies and fireworks.

With all current FPS titles seemingly WW2 hemed or asking you to fight aliens, mutants, ghosts or mutated alien ghosts, to fight people in recognisable settings - not that we spend much time in dojos and ancient Japanese castles - give Red Steel a purist feeling. A return to the good old days of killing our fellow man in an everyday world. Wait - that came out more menacing than we meant it to.

Graphics violence

And, it's a looker too. When entering sky-lighted rooms and seeing the beams of light cutting through the murky air, you'll know you're dealing with more than souped up GameCube graphics. Atmospheric effects and beautiful incidental detail abound: the furnace's heat shimmer; the rippling water features of Harry's nightclub; reflections on the varnished wooden floors; the view-swamping smoke of the burning dojo; the general sense of a natural light in the outdoor areas that somehow still manages to permeate the dark neon nightmares of the sordid clubs and dens.

It's almost a shame to shoot the areas up, in fact, as the attention to detail makes us have to wipe away tears with our nunchuk. Still, most of it is destroyable, and for good reason. Every time we came across a villain hiding behind a wooden post we chose not to wait him out, because splintering his cover with a shotgun looks amazing. Similarly, even running through a generic office full of desks, monitors and wall dividers is like living your wildest John Woo fantasy when they're all blown to smithereens.

A few jaggy edges need a sharp katana slice, and one grenade-lobbing incident combined with frenzied disco lights caused minor slowdown, but it only happened once. All in all, it's a pretty polished game.

Oh noh!

Unfortunately though, there is a downside. It's a decent sized tale, but outside of replaying levels to improve your accuracy and timing ranks, there aren't any obvious game extending rewards. There's only one difficulty setting, and old levels can't be replayed without redoing the tutorials within them. It's certainly no GoldenEye or Perfect Dark.

Gunplay is such a joy that we really welcomed the chance to pit our aiming skills against each other in multiplayer. It's not a deep experience - limited to four levels and a handful of playable characters - but the 'Killer' mode, where secret objectives are spoken to you from your remote speaker, is a real unique treat, and it's nice to have an adult multiplayer experience amongst all the cutesy party games.

This is an important title. So many launch titles falsely claim to be 'pick up and play'. Newcomers can pick up and 'do', certainly, but this offers a proper playing experience. If you want to see what your Wii can really do, Red Steel is a slice above the rest.

90

You can roll your eyes and smirk at the central character kicking off proceedings from a deep slumber once, but Baten Kaitos has done this twice now. Anyone would swear they were doing it on purpose - same for the absolutely dreadful dialogue. On the charge of hideously wooden voice work, Baten Kaitos is one game away from being a serial offender.

Pass the baten down

At least there's plenty to make up for it. Never-less-than-stunning backdrops*, beautifully drawn and alive with ambient effects; another exceptional soundtrack; a strangely regal atmosphere; and a two-disk adventure that'll keep your GameCube's cooling fan purring softly right up until you queue for your Wii.

The biggest draw** though, is the smart card-based battle system. Although the concept will be as appealing to some as being held prisoner at a Magic the Gathering convention, with a really bad hangover - it's actually much cleverer than you'd expect. All the issues you'd associate with such a system are there - deck building and the inevitable random factor for example - but it's very fast paced and requires strategy, forethought and quick reactions to draw cards in the best sequences you can, given the hands you have.

The card theme is integral to the game as a whole too. Just like the first game, special cards (called Magnus) can be used to trap the 'essence' of items like fire, water, bread, and - charmingly - rotting flesh. These can be used to solve simple puzzles, or be combined to create special cards that can be taken into battle.

It's a clever and very rewarding system, and once you look past some irritating battles where your current deck never quite clicks, there's a lot to admire here. It mightn't be as memorable an RPG as the classics (or even the first Kaitos), and the characterisation mightn't be as strong, but Origins has managed to tame even the ever-grumbling RPG haters in the NGamer office. Import away, you lot.

79

*Though we're still not best pleased at how the characters' feet slide all over them as though they were basted in pig fat.
**If you'll pardon the pun, anyway. Which, er, you'll need to read the next bit to understand.