One of the first Wii games to be released. When I first saw the trailer for it, I was gob-smacked. The Wii was the first console to really bring in motion gaming. The likes of the Eyetoy on the Playstation captured motion, but it didn’t have as much of an impact. So, gun fights where you could actually feel like you were shooting a gun, sword fights where the sword would move to your movements. Sounded all good.

Of course, that was all that the trailer showed. In reality, your sword had as much movement as a Scalextric. Two swipes you choose from, oh and of course you could block. The guns moved about well, and that was about it. The controller didn’t vibrate as you fired, you couldn’t get pin-point headshots as shown in the trailer. At this point, the game was added to the list of games, where the trailer was actually better than the game. Nobody at the time knew that, and the game was flying off the shelves. What a big let down.

Let’s look at the gameplay. Graphically, you can’t demand too much from the console. The graphics are quite good for the Wii, considering it usually does better on the graphically less demanding cartoon-style games. There are a lot of physics in the game, tables that are waiting to be pushed over as cover, and things smashing as they are hit by bullets. The AI can also push surroundings over as cover, as they are very resourceful.

The AI are aggressive, and will surround the players cover point, firing bullets from all directions. Once a certain number of points have been accumulated, a player can temporarily freeze time, allowing them to take out a number of enemies at once.

The story is very complex. I won’t go through it, but I’ll give you the basics. You play as Scott Monroe. He is engaged to Miyo Sato, and goes to a hotel to meet her father, Isao Sato. The hotel staff are actually disguised gangsters though, and they begin to open fire on Sato’s room. The situations get worse, and eventually Miyo is captured. The whole game surrounds trying to save her. Of course you get your usual complications throughout, and odds that seem impossible, but the game is possible to finish.

You may be surprised to learn that there is a multiplayer option. No, this is not Wi-Fi, this is your bog standard ‘play with people in the room’ multiplayer. Up to 4 people can play at once, so make sure you have a decent sized TV with a lot of space around it, otherwise, you’ll have 4 people who can’t see the screen and can’t move, and that’s hardly fun. There are only 3 different types of game on 4 different maps. There’s your usual Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and a mode called Killer. Each players fights for themselves. At the start of the round, each player receives a secret objective, which they can listen to through their Wii remote (yes, it’s supposed to be like a telephone).

Another feature of multiplayer are the bonuses available. There are 3 bonuses that a player can choose from at the start of a round; more health, more damage or infinite ammo. You don’t have your bonuses throughout the match, you kill people, and this fills up your ‘bonus gauge’ which can be activated in the match, giving you the bonus you chose for a limited time.

To wrap things up, this is not a fantastic game. The graphics are standard, the storyline is dramatically farfetched and whoever thought of the multiplayer idea needs to put their thinking cap on. If that wasn’t bad enough, a sequel, Red Steel 2, is due for release this year. Lets see how good the trailer to that is.

Game Rating: 4/10