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Gamerace on 25 January 2010
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stof said:
Gamerace said:
I can't see it making 1m - ever. You make solid points Stof but my main observation is that the game was not build from the ground up to develop a game around a fun concept (WM+ sword-fighting). Rather, the concept was merged into a game already well into development with the hope of making it fun and capitalizing on people's desire for true 1:1 sword fighting.

End result: The game looks like fun for about 15 minutes. Then it's more of the same, more of the same, more of the same. Your arms will get tired, your brain will numb. One mindless enemy after the other, broken up by the occasional boss battle or puzzle.

Of course, Zelda does that as does any FPS but Zelda is about the puzzles/exploration/bosses not the fighting, FPS are well established, polished (from 20 yrs of FPS history of what to do and not to do) and non-tiring fun.

Red Steel 2 looks to have no creative merit. It's a cash in on a concept but not a game build around the concept from the start. Yes, RS2 was always planned to have sword fighting but not because Ubisoft had found some genius idea of how to make it fun for endless hours, but because they thought people would think it was fun.

A Punch-out fencing approach would have been the better way to go I think for this. Learn the enemy's pattern and then overcome it. Block, block, parry, thrust. A thinking mans sword fighting game. RS2 looks like a tiring waggle-fest. Like Soul Calibur Legends, except it's now a 1:1 waggle fest.

I predict it'll go the same as the first, there will be some (muted) hype around it due to the promise of 1:1 sword fighting (like the original had) but once critics and people get their hands on it that'll vanish like a puff of smoke.


I really don't follow you on the bolded part. Red Steel 2 was a result of M+. It seems to me like the text book cse of a game built from the ground up around a fun concept. As for sword fighting getting boring and arm hurting... Sports Resort sword fighting is incredibly fun. And RS2 allows you to sword fight when you want and shoot when you want. I guess we're just going to disagree on how the sword fighting is implimented, though hands on time previews sure do make it look like a lot of fun.

And yeah, I figured I should jump on this bet while you still had that sig.

I mean Nintendo will take a core concept, like sword fighting, and play with it and play with it until they find either how to do it so it's addictive fun or they just reject it.   Once they figure out how to really capitalize on the fun they build the game around that core competency.  For example chopping vegetables in WSR where the WM+ really counts.  The slightest tilt could cost you the point.

When WM+ was announced RS2 was already a year in development.  Two if you include the development at the previous studio Ubisoft later yanked it from.   Ubisoft immediately saw WM+ as a great way to enhance the game and build more hype so they immediately announced they'd include it.    Then they revamped the game again to focus on the sword-fighting more than the FPS elements.

Where Nintendo might have taken a year or three to really find the sweet spot for sword fighting (beyond the fairly shallow bit in WSR) Ubisoft just shoved it into a pre-existing game, hoping to find the fun along the way.    

From all the videos I've seen, I haven't seen much depth to it.   It looks like a button masher except you're swinging your arms about instead of mashing buttons.   Nor does it look like the 1:1 actually matters.  It does slightly here and there (shockwave attack for instance) but mostly it doesn't matter if you swing at a 45 degree angle, or 38 degree angle, if an enemy is going to block, you're blocked regardless.   If an enemy is blocking on his left you swing from the right instead but again, how you swing seems irrelevant.   It's stuff that could be just as simply done without WM+ or even with an analog stick.   And that's my problem with it.   This looks to me like a game that was already designed for simple Wii gestures with WM+ overlaid on top.  It's not the 1:1 sword fighting game we've been waiting for since Wii launched.   That we got in WSR.  This is Soul Calibur Legends with WM+ laid over top for effect instead of a game designed around the fundamental freedoms that WM+ permits.

I may be wrong and I'd love to be wrong.  I'll gladly buy it first day if I'm wrong but I haven't seen anything to make me thing I am.