E3 Preview: Red Steel

(That one part of the game where the remote's functionality wasn't the focus.)

Let's face it, folks. As cool as bullet time is, it's played out. Too many games use it and many of them do not warrant it. It was good in Max Payne and a few other titles, but it usually feels like a gimmick. I am pleased to say here that Red Steel tries something new. The game doesn't slow down time to encourage dodging bullets, but to encourage precise aiming. In fact, time practically stops, so moving wouldn't be too useful anyway.

When time slows down (done by holding the A button) the player has opportunity to select specific points on one or more enemies to shoot. In the demo the player was prompted to initiate the slow down of time, but in the final game, you can use the ability at any time, so long as a certain meter is filled to allow the ability. I watched many people go for headshots during this sequence in the demo and so when it came my turn I chose to try something different. I had heard that the game would allow the player to shoot a weapon out of the enemy's hands and force them to surrender and I was determined to see how well it worked. As it turns out it works very well as I was able to shoot the weapon out of three different enemies almost simultaneously. It was very pleasurable to watch them all simultaneously kneel before me in fear.


Press and hold A for a moment to slow down time, move your aiming reticule over an area on an enemy you want to shoot, press B to select that area, select more areas as you see fit before your ability wears off, and press A again when you're finished. Time resumes its normal flow. Your character shoots all the specific points at a lightning fast speed. You feel unstoppable. It's that simple.


I did not have as much time as I would have liked with the Red Steel demo at E3, but I enjoyed what time I had. Killing the enemies was very satisfying and the added immersive quality the remote brings to the table improved my overall experience, even despite the fact that the game didn't seem to use the Wii Remote as best it could. Still, it's a great start for the genre on Wii and gives me much hope for the future. The control still needs tweaking, of course. Sensitivity sliders in the final game's options menu will probably fix most of the problems I had getting used to it. Being able to sit down at home and rest my hand on my lap as opposed to trying to keep it as still as possible while having to hang it in the air at a demo kiosk would also help tremendously, so I can't fault the demo's controls too much.

The only serious problem I found was that if, in excitement, I accidentally moved my arms too much (trying to manually aim with my arm, for instance) the game seemed to freak out until I calmed my hand down. Some sort of safeguard against that would be great because, even though I can train myself to stop trying to aim the remote like a real gun, there will be times that someone may bump into me or I'll get some sort of evil itch that I need to take care of in an instant and I'd rather not feel like my control of the game is thrown out the window because of a bad flinch. Conveniently, Red Steel isn't too bad on its own either, so even if that little problem makes it into the final game, I'd still buy it. Even without the Wii Remote technology, it's refreshing to not have another sci-fi FPS on the horizon.