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August 11, 2007
Under the Peg - Red Is The Color of Rust
My family recently bought a Wii. It was Maggie's idea. (I think it's because she's something of a Link fan. Part of the plan behind buying the Wii was that the three teenagers (Barb Gigamaster, Maggie, and myself) would each buy a game to go with the Wii. My first choice was Red Steel. I talked about it with a friend of Maggie's who already owned a Wii. He replied that the game had serious problems with the AI, and the combat system was flawed, so it would be a better idea to rent the game first. I rented it yesterday...
And turned it back in today.
The game claimed to contain realistic swordplay, Wield the Remote as an extention of your arm, claimed the box. When you actually use your sword it's less sword, and more laser pointer. A real sword requires you to swing your arm in a great sweeping arc, attempting to build as much momentum as possible for when you make contact with your opponent. In Red Steel, you flick the Remote to tell your character to slash. Later, you acquire a weapon that can be used to stab your opponents. You use this weapon it by flicking the Nunchuck up. Unfortunately, you reload your weapons by flicking the Nunchuck down. I lost count of the number of times I fought my way behind a bad guy and moved in for a stab only to reload my weapon. The really awful thing is that these mishaps had very little effect on my performance in the game.
The Enemy's AI is another technical pitfall. The enemy shooters have no grasp of tactics, no concept of ducking for cover, and seem to think the acme of marksmanship is to aim in a general direction and fire.
As far as the story goes, it's all been done before. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy has to shoot through hundreds of thugs to get the girl back. It's sort of like what Romeo and Juliet would have been if Shakespeare had known about machine guns. I'm serious, folks: this game is so bad that inserting 60 love sonnets would not make it any more boring.
Overall: Dull, dull, dull, dull.
Score: One peg, to be hammered through the spindle hole until the disc shatters.
# At Sat 6:06 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (3) | More Under the Peg | Tags: Nintendo Red Steel review video games Wii
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Tracked on August 12, 2007 8:48 AM
Comments
BTW, do you have 2 cats? More? They are so adorable...when they're sleeping! Gosh, mine are the sweetest, but they know just when there is something important on the computer that I have not saved yet...lol. Yup, that's when they jump up and onto the keyboard. Oh well. What can I say? I love them. :)
Posted by: Rosemary 
at August 12, 2007 8:53 AM
The thought of what compromises Shakespeare would have to make, and what he'd have to contend with writing today is scary. (I'm surprised someone hasn't already staged a "modern" Romeo and Juliet with machine guns and nudity and all the other junk they put into the way they present plays and operas today.)
I hate it when a game is irrational at the most basic moments, like swordplay. You'd think that would be an area where they'd really sweat the details.
Posted by: Minta Marie Morze at August 12, 2007 12:11 PM
Posted by: Ferdy at August 12, 2007 7:43 PM
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