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Most of the doubt surrounding Red Steel 2 has to do with the swordplay -- and it's for good reason. The bandana'd thug-slashing permeating the entirety of its predecessor just flat out didn't work, most of us can surely agree. But this latest video diary shows how the addition of Wii MotionPlus has really changed the experience in the sequel, at least from a slashing and stabbing perspective. See for yourself in the footage above.

He may be introduced as "a nice guy," but we're betting Red Steel 2's newly introduced character "Payne" isn't quite as friendly as the trailer above would let on. Sure, he may take you for rides on his motorcycle and ... um ... show you the inside of his new truck (?), but won't he get you killed when his path of destruction drags you down with him? The risk is yours, friend, should you decide to take the chance. You'll have plenty of time to decide between now and the notoriously vague "early 2010," when the game's set to hit store shelves.

With a sword! There, are you happy?!

During a Q&A session following the PAX demo of Red Steel 2, creative director Jason VandenBerghe told Joystiq that he would "love" to see Red Steel arrive on other platforms. When asked about the possibilities of the new motion control options headed to PS3 and Xbox 360, VandenBerghe said, "I personally would love to see any and all consoles have more sword fighting experiences." He then added that any decision to develop the series on other consoles would be up to Ubisoft.

Here's hoping Ubisoft decides to throw us more than a deluge of Rabbids once the 360 and PS3 climb aboard the motion control bandwagon.

Ubisoft has unleashed a developer walkthrough of Red Steel 2, where creative director Jason Vandenberg takes us through one of the game's levels. There's plenty of context-sensitive prompts to ogle and lots of swordplay, not to mention that super strong double-barreled shotgun, but the real value is in juggling those ninjas. We can definitely see ourselves having fun playing clay pigeon with a few ninjas.

Maybe this afternoon's news that Splinter Cell: Conviction – aka Badass: The Game – and Red Steel 2 were being delayed from later this year to the beginning of next year took you by surprise. Not us, Reader. We've become so desensitized to the pain of losing highly anticipated titles like Conviction to the vagaries of a tumultuous market that we can no longer tell delays from cancellations. We've got it bad.

So, we tuned into Ubisoft's conference call this afternoon in the hopes of gleaning some new information from CEO Yves Guillemot. To our pleasure, Mr. Guillemot provided some details explaining why one of his company's already very delayed major releases would be delayed further. "Red Steel and Splinter Cell are going to greatly benefit from the additional polishing time we are providing and will clearly be among the leading brands on the Wii and 360 for the March quarter," Guillemot said. If you'll recall, Splinter Cell: Conviction had already missed its original 2007 release date.

When asked why these two games were being delayed, Guillemot explained, "The changes on Splinter Cell and Red Steel – it's just a question of polish. The team was asking that they couldn't be with the level of quality on all the maps and all the game for the end of the year, so they had asked for more time to be able to come with a better product, for both of those games. The quality of the games is there for what you've been able to see at E3, but we were not able to have that same quality on the full game of those two products."

Of course, in a conference call full of analysts and investors, the tiny matter of lost sales came up. Guillemot admitted that, for "those two products, it's around a million units" of lost sales in the first month. However, when faced with releasing subpar titles or losing a stronger opening month, Guillemot came down strongly in favor of the latter. "We really think with the level of quality that we'll be able to obtain with the time we give them we will have a long shelf life for those products," he explained. "Now, because [Conviction and Red Steel 2] are launching during that quarter, they will not do as many units for the first month as they would have done in November/December, but we think that on the long-term they can achieve more units than what they would've done."

And it sounds like Ubisoft's patient partner for the still Xbox 360-exclusive Conviction – that would be Microsoft – doesn't mind waiting another couple months. Guillemot says, "We still have the full support of Microsoft because they know that if we can bring a very high-quality game this will help their machine. So we still have the full support from them." And if they deliver a quality game, they'll have the support of gamers as well. Your move, Ubi.

We stopped by Ubisoft's San Francisco offices late last week to spend more time with its upcoming Nintendo platform lineup. Although we'd played many of the same games -- at the same stage of development -- during E3, now was the time to really focus on details. So, first up was Red Steel 2, a game that initially had us smitten with its manga-esque East-meets-West visual style, but failed to impress once we took hold of its controls.

So, once again, we were faced with the extremely short demo / gameplay primer Ubisoft had created for last month's trade show. This second look didn't leave us any more enamored with the mix of sword slashing and pistol shooting, but we were able to get a better idea of exactly what didn't feel right. At the same time, we came away even more impressed by the game from a visual standpoint than when we'd first seen it in action.

This week, the Nintendo Channel has been flooded with a variety of interviews about big upcoming Wii titles. There are interviews with the folks behind FFCC: The Crystal Bearers, Red Steel 2, Cave Story, and, as you can see above, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. So, hit up the video above, then if you want more E3 interview goodness, be sure to boot up your Wii and check out what's on the Nintendo Channel.

Nintendo E3 2009 checklist:

• Mario? *check*
• Zelda? *check*
• Metroid? *check*

Are we missing something? Head past the break to find out!

After the awkward and misguided mess that was Ubisoft's Red Steel, it must sound like damning praise to say, "Well, the sequel's much better." After all, Nintendo's newfangled MotionPlus attachment has come to save the day, introducing one-to-one movement and finally delivering the sword fighting extravaganza that all those energetic Wii players have been enjoying in the commercials.

Unfortunately, MotionPlus' binding to Red Steel 2 doesn't feel particularly effective in combating the original game's flaws. It's a miss, like sticking a band-aid on someone's knee after they've been poisoned. If the MotionPlus makes a fundamental difference to the gameplay, it's not immediately apparent within the framework of a pretty insipid combat system.

As one would assume, a samurai western video game with a heavy focus on the implementation of a peripheral that allows for alleged 1:1 digital sword maneuvering will be hitting store shelves bundled with said attachment. Or, to put it in monosyllabic terms, we just learned at the Ubisoft press conference that the Wii MotionPlus exclusive Red Steel 2 will be bundled with Wii MotionPlus at launch. Are you like, totally surprised?

We still have no idea why it's taken Sam Fisher so long to return to us, but at least now we have a better idea of when he'll be back. Ubisoft narrowed the release date for Splinter Cell: Conviction to Q3 of this fiscal year (between November 2009 and December 2009) in a conference call this morning.

We also got narrower release windows for games like Assassin's Creed 2 (Q3), Red Steel 2 (Q3) and Ghost Recon 4 (Q4). You can check out the full list right here.

Both Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter and EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich expect the Wii MotionPlus peripheral to achieve sales of around ten million units in the US and Europe. The two just disagree on how long it will take.

Pachter believes that the sales will happen early on, driven by bundles of early MotionPlus compatible software: "I think around 20 percent of Wii owners in the US and Europe will have bought Wii Sports Resort, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 or EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis," Pachter told Edge, "so that's around eight million." He added, "I think another two million will buy MotionPlus with new consoles."

Divnich thinks three million units will sell through this holiday season, but it will take an additional year to achieve the ten-million-plus level of sales. "For the Wii MotionPlus, we currently expect the install base to reach over 11 million units by the end of Nintendo's next fiscal year in March 2011, a 15 percent penetration."

Both analysts think Red Steel 2 is a risk that could pay off for Ubisoft. "Red Steel 2 may come along at precisely the right time, around when people are ready for another [MotionPlus] game," Pachter said. "The risk is really more a function of competition, compounded by the risk that Ubisoft could make a bad game." Both analysts believe that Red Steel 2 will be bundled with a MotionPlus.

Where did it come from? Who knows. What we do know is that a promotional video for Ubisoft's recently revealed, Wii-exclusive Red Steel 2 -- prefaced by a screen bearing the words "Destination PlayStation" for no logical reason -- has been uploaded to YouTube. The roughly minute-and-a-half video talks up the game's Wii MotionPlus-infused gameplay and depicts a guy (we'll call him "Joe Gamer") swinging away in his living room as some surprisingly good looking gameplay footage is shown.

We say "surprisingly" because it appears to be much sharper than Wii's 480p visuals are capable of. It is nice and smooth, which is in keeping with the game's purported 60 frames-per-second action. Pre-rendered or not, we totally dig the visual style, Ubisoft. More, please.

Get thyself an eyeful after the break.

[Via GoNintendo]

As you probably already know, the latest issue of Nintendo Power blows the doors off of the recently announced sequel to the Wii's slightly disappointing, sword/gun-toting FPS launch title, Red Steel. Now that the mag has landed in a few quivering, anticipatory hands, more details about Red Steel 2 are beginning to surface.

First and foremost, the title will apparently be cel-shaded -- hinted at by the sole piece of concept art we received yesterday, and confirmed by a number of scans which are beginning to creep onto the internets. Also, we recently got confirmation from Nintendo Power itself that the game will be "Wii MotionPlus exclusive," a phrase we can only interpret to mean "you need a MotionPlus dongle to play it." (Are you guys comfortable with calling it a dongle? That's such a lovely word. Don-gle.)

We'll let you know when we hear even more facts about the game. And by facts, we don't mean "my brother's girlfriend's sister's stepmom goes to a beauty parlor where she read about Red Steel 2 while waiting for her bouffant to dry."

[Thanks, Fernando Rocker!]