Red Steel

Red Steel is a launch title that came out with the Wii.

The single player storyline: You play as Scott, killing enemies with gunfire and having sporadic sword fights through linear levels to save Miyu. The gameplay is smooth in general, however there are some glitches throughout the game, some of which are quite irritating - no one wants to be stuck in a level with no way of fixing it apart from resetting!

This game comes with a steep learning curve for the average gamer. It could take you anywhere between 15 minutes to two hours before being able to efficiently navigate around the level and aim efficiently at enemies. The AI is sub par, well, that doesn't really matter since it's just AI after all. The sword fights are rather undeveloped, slashing continuously would almost guarantee a win in most scenarios.

Multiplayer is perhaps what saves this game from its downfalls. While the maps are very limited and quite big for two players to play in, this game provides a new FPS experience on the consoles. Aiming and shooting has never been as fast before on other standard console controllers, which really gives it an edge. The lack of customisation prevents it from being a highly competitive game. The armour somewhat destroys the balance of multiplayer. Unfortunately, there are no sword fights in the multiplayer mode.

While Red Steel's is an average game, the new control scheme permitted it to prosper. On the whole, the new aiming concept is very innovative and could serve as a foundation for similar games in the future.

Note: If you ever find your cursor to jiggle around randomly, it's a bug that could be solved by turning the wiimote's speakers off.

Finally, to all the gamers who complain that the controls are too difficult or wonky: