Red Steel improved, reports Game Informer [update 2]

NOW that's good news for the Wii. This may just be what makes me buy the Nintendo console. The E3 version looked like crap.

If the reviewer didn't know that you could parry with the Nunchaku at E3, I highly doubt that he played the game there, and would therefore be pretty fantastically useless in terms of making comparisons.

I think the full quote from the magazine reveals that they're just playing the E3 build, and they considered it an improvement over what they'd seen in France some months earlier. Unfortunately.

Ubisoft should really consider some damage control on the PR for this game. At least let us know what they're aiming for.

Wow, everyone's getting this story wrong apparently. Check out the original GoNintendo source and read the comments... the magazine is referring to the E3 build. http://gonintendo.com/?p=3221

Um.

Why do you link to nintendojo, which is reporting on Go Nintendo's reports that is simply a report from the IGN board?

Here's the link to the original source:

http://boards.ign.com/nintendo_wii_lobby/b8270/120178118/p1/?17

As far as I've read, Joystiq was one of the only "publications" to say negative things about Red Steel.

Regardless, good to hear they implemented the full control.

Good thing, since that seems to be the only innovation of the game. I was reading the same GI article, and they talk about how they have people on different levels vertically, like up a staircase, and what an innovation that was. Sorry, but I don't think that's the first time I've seen that in a FPS.

"6. As far as I've read, Joystiq was one of the only "publications" to say negative things about Red Steel."

What the hell are you 'reading'?

Every hear of EGM?

You don't suppose a publication like Gameinformer with ties to retail stores would run damage control for publishers like Ubisoft do you? noooooo waaaaaay

Franky,
As far as we know, they still haven't changed the gameplay from the E3 build. The game does not perfectly mirror your sword slashes. It's more like doing a combination of moves in real life that then activate some "special" move that's already pre-animated.

Look interesting, dont know if I'll buy it. I'm trying to figure out whether to buy an xbox 360 core or a Wii.

Joystiq gets paid to say bad things about Nintendo and all their stuff!

More Wii-bashing.

You forgot to moan about the graphics tho.

Yeah I got my issue yesterday and happend to read that. Of course it was from E3 so I knew that someone was lying. And yes I have also noticed that you are one of the only game sites/mags that say it played bad except that the controls were too sensitive.
P.S. I hope it is better than what you say...

The Raikage

Well, as far as I'm concerned, if the game did perfectly replicate your sword slashes, it would be exceedingly difficult to play, because 1) despite the fact that we all played around with toy lightsabers as a kid, almost none of us actually know anything about swordfighting, which is not quite as easy as pointing at something and shooting at it, and 2) there's no enemy sword in real life to block our swings, so we'd be following swings through and the character on screen wouldn't be.

Sure, they can make an intuitive, somewhat realistic sword-fighting system, but I don't think allowing for complete control of your sword by replicating the Wiimote's movement exactly is something that would make for a very playable game.

i love how this site is taken to task daily for both sony and nintendo bashing.

Grant:

YES! Someone who gets it!

Without the feedback implemented to stop your sword once it gets parried, you'd be totally hosed!

Think about it, everyone else who isn't Grant. Imagine taking a completely stupid overhand salsh down at the enemy's head. The enemy blocks. You in real life continue to follow through. Now your sword's in a position the game would read as "position after block, -40 points on the Y-axis.

Then your sword, in-game is on the floor, and you're wide open to get tagged by the simplest of blows.

If people are going to try and make it seem like you're getting hyper realism out of the Wii controller, what you're going to end up with is the input equivalent of the Uncanny Valley.

Expect games. Don't expect these things to mimic real life, because they fall woefully short of that mark.

Perhaps they could implement a sword-fighting system like the one they had in that Star Wars arcade game that came out a few years ago... Not sure what the game was called, but it had levels in all three movies of the original trilogy... anyway, when you were in a lightsaber duel, your joystick did perfectly replicate your saber's movement, but you could only land blows and block when on-screen indicators came on to tell you which way to swing and to block when the enemy was about to strike. But that didn't allow for full movement of your character... you were on rails. So it couldn't be exactly like that. And that might feel too gimmicky anyway.

while what grant says is very accurate it doesnt excuse the game from sucking horribly. I played the game and it was iffy at best. the controls where terrible. While the canned animation thing may be a neccesary evil they need to add more variety cause the 8 direction slashing that was available at the show was painfuly dull and unexciting. Also the aiming felt more like house of the dead than a shooter. Metroid was much better in that respect.

Alkaiser,

I get what you are saying but taking your example a bit further: Lets say the user swings and the bad guy blocks it...the game would have pre-determined and finite ways in which to block any given strike right?

The AI picks a "block" in which the bad guy can logically use based on the trajectory of the user's sword. The point at which the user's sword will contact the bad guy's "block" will happen in the same place every time (i.e XYZ coordinates) for that particular block. The Wii could then easily ignore user input (i.e Wiimote motions) that continue downward.

So the user could follow thru with their swing but the Wii would ignore any further movements until the Wiimote was brought back up above the Y (vertical) coordinate that the "block" was executed at. The resulting gameplay might end up looking strange compared to the user's swinging but I wonder if with practice, the user will naturally train themself to not always "follow thru" when its obvious their strike has been blocked? Probably confusingly written but I think this free swinging concept is doable to an extent.

I imagine that there will be an attack system almost like Resident Evil 4's, in an almost cinimatic "press the button that it says on screen before time runs out" style. Where on easy, you would have a fair amount of time to perform the actions on screen (a downward slash from right to left), and on hard (a downward slash from left to right, and then a cross cut right to left) or, Crimson? (never take your eyes off the screen cuz you might miss something, with the controller shaking your arm off, thank god I just did that!) type of crazy action.
Don't worry, this game and the Wii will be good.

Lupos,

Agreed, I don't mean to say that the game can't be improved.

Alkaiser - i doubt a sword fighting game would allow your swrd to jump from the spot where it was parried to the floor just because your hand has moved the controller that far down - it's all relative.

i would imagine that a sword fighting game that tried to let you "somewhat" sword fight with the controller would, on any parry (or stab, even), hold the sword position in the game for a set amount of time (even if just for a half second), then reassess what the player was doing with the controller. this would give the player time to note what just happened, and move his controller appropriately. at this point the players hand might be lower, but any moves he would make would be relative to the position of the sword in the game where it was when the parry happened.

this makes sense since we aren't really going to be jumping around and swinging our arms like the people in the Wii trailers... we generally are going to be sitting down on our couches.

so... of course, we won't be really simulating sword fighting - not with just the wiimote, anyway - but i don't see why a game can't use slash, stab, and other motions for swordplay.

Josh, I'd imagine that would be very hard to calibrate well, but perhaps it is possible.

Or, in the case of a parry, the sword is blocked, but after it is blocked the software moves the on screen sword appropriately to re-align with where your real world wiimote is.

The magazine EGM was kinda negaative towards Red Steel also. They said it looked and played terrible.

@Mark
EGM is pretty much negative towards everything. You can't really blame them for being consistant.

But regarding the E3 build. Mabye they just really liked it, but from the conference video, the game looks unpolished. But before starting, they said they had just recently ported the demo to the Wii and apologized for anything wrong with it. I'm just hoping that that means something come launch when that game slips into my console.