Sorry for the epically long post but I think I learned a few things myself while trying to figure this one out.

I own Red Steel 2 and agree there was indeed effort put into the game. But despite the very well executed controls and the very good graphics I eventually found it somewhat boring and never managed to bring myself to finish it either.

I think the reason for this is a combination of needing to put in a lot of physical effort in order to progress in the single player, and getting relatively little reward for your progression. I just didn't feel compelled to move forward. There was no story to care about, no meaningful character interactions, no level progression..

In fact now that I think about it -- having played roughly six hours of the game it feels like the entire experience could have been condensed into 1-2 hours, or in other words -  it felt more like a tech demo than a full game. That's how  repetitive it felt.

After every hour or so of doing the same thing you are rewarded with 1 or 2 new moves. However for the most part these moves didn't really have much of an effect on gameplay.. I mean after trying them out a few times you were basically right back where you started..

I think having repetitive combat isn't such a problem for side scrolling games like Ninja-Gaiden because you are also being entertained by your character's cool acrobatics, so performing the same moves over and over again isn't as boring. Being in first person obviously takes away this experience and also contributes to disorientating the player  - and the confusing level design didn't help with that either. To further illustrate my point just think about side scrolling brawlers, and how often the player character is facing away from enemies, sometimes even in the middle of an attack (like performing a somersault or back flip). Not only is this not distracting, it's amusing to watch. Contrast this with a game like Mirror's Edge, and you begin to see that this is a bigger problem than just Red Steel 2.

Continuing on this train of thought, another contributing factor to the boredom was the variety of moves. When playing third person brawlers there can be different variations on the same move depending on the direction the character is facing, enemy type, environmental objects etc. A good example of this is the combat in Metroid: Other M. An even better example would be last gen's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

In these games, even when you are essentially giving the exact same command you experience different results depending on camera orientation (allowing you to see the move in a new way), enemy type (different animations for the player character), enemy and environment orientations relative to the player (performing a jump near a wall vs  near a pole in Prince, for example), and possibly even some randomized variations on the same move just to look cool.

While all these are definitely possible in a third person game, they are very difficult to implement in a first person game because you don't see your character's movement. You can't switch camera angles and you can't cycle through different animations while in first person because this would be too confusing for the player and may possibly break immersion. You also have a limit on how acrobatic these moves can be to begin with because once again, it's disorientating.

If you think about games that are somewhere in the middle between these two categories - i.e. not in first person, but without a fixed camera either - a game that comes to mind is Jedi Knight 2, then that game also had acrobatics that were fairly limited by the camera and as a result the combat wasn't as exciting as you might imagine.

The final point is that the developers themselves described the game as a "First Person Brawler" and if you think about what made old-school side scrolling brawlers fun it was usually the cool moves (which you could see) and the co-op multiplayer (which was absent here).

So to summarize, I think there is just as much of a problem with this type of design as there is with Red Steel 2 in particular not taking additional measures to counter these problems (like having more variety and a better story and characters).

Essentially what it comes down to is a wiimote brawler in first person = way more work for less reward than a traditional side scrolling brawler. Take away multiplayer, co-op and variety and you've got yourself a problem.

Still, I think there is much to learn from Red Steel 2 if the genre will ever be tackled in the future.. I just wish the Wii could benefit from some of the fruits of all these "experiments" (it probably won't)

I'd also like to add that when it came to interaction with the environment this game basically felt like any other light-gun shooter... Shoot box, get coins, rinse, repeat..

There are definitely good qualities in the game, and an analysis of what went right and wrong would be beneficial to Ubisoft.

Auto regenerative health FPS's are hardcore now? Don't make me laugh. I come from a generation of gamers that actually beat Ghouls and Ghosts, your definition of hardcore is ridiculous.

Halo and MW are casual ("mainstream") titles. Sure, they're not for younger age groups (under 12), but don't start declaring your untouchable sphere of awesomeness isn't fractured by the mainstreaming of game entertainment in general.

@conegamer  no one was saying that Red Steel 2 should go to Move, what we are saying is that Red Steel 3 (if made) has to go multiplat, especially after these abysmal sales. Some of you guys kill me, you dont support these games but as soon as a rumor comes that you might lose a "precious" exclusive all of a sudden you love it. 

It really shows how sad the fanbase for FPS on Wii is when you have to combine two different games to count one sale. GE and Black Ops are two different games made by two different devs. they dont even play the same. Why dont I just combine Resistance and Killzone??? Hell I think Ill add Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm to make PS3 look better ;)

I agree. And normally, I wouldn't compare sales. But 2 games from Activision in the same week? It just makes sense to look at the sales in a combined way, no prejudice at all, of course

@gumby trucker  you've made alot of sense and I generally agree with most of what you posted, I love the game myself and finished it but I could see how some would find it repetitive. In my case I just played the game in short burst, about 45-60 mins at a time. and a better story would have helped. Im hoping if they do a followup they go back to the setting of 1 and keep the controls of 2 and put back in multiplayer

@rolstoppable  launches suck, people should just wait until a system has games they actually want instead of buying crap and give publishers a false sense of success, thats a discussion for another day.

I totally agree with the pirate issue however, you have to admit at least those pirates were interested in the game so it must not have been that bad. My thing is this IMHO this is one of those games that are not subpar, there is no Red Steel 2 equilavent on the HDs, if we were talking COD then yeah, most people interested would just buy the HD version since its going to most likely be better. My point is here is game that is straight up in line with what the Wii intially said it would deliver and different gaming experience and people didnt support it.  Even those few games that actually had effort put in them and dont suck pale in comparison to the HD sales. Its not so much as blaming the Wii audience, but lets keep it real. the WiiFit/Just Dance crowd would never look at these games anyway no matter how much ads or how well its done. So its already an uphill battle for 3rd parties. and people might not believe it but that WiiCrowd is much bigger than the core Wii only gamer

@conegamer companies do that all the time. Why not throw BloodStone in their that came out the same day as GE. YOu cant take two different games and try to add it as one sale that is ridiculous. YOur assuming that everyone who bought GE would have bought BO and vice versa. There is no way you can know that. Maybe some people bought both?? Maybe some bought neither. I bought both, and I would have still gotten COD if there was no GE and vice versa. YOu have to take the highest selling one and go from their. Right now i believe its COD4 for Wii at 1mil which is weak in comparison to the HDs, but HD gamers love to shoot things

Economy would be my guess. I am only able to get like 2-3 games a year, and that's from gift cards at Christmas. Not having a job kinda limits your purchases beyond food and basics. The other issue is that games that are released in the first half of the year often get lost in the fray by the time the holidays roll around. So unless a game was AMAZING, if it releases before Q3, its going to get lost in the shuffle.

However, now that you have mentioned this game as being good, I'll have to add it to the list for when I financially recover. =)

Never ceases to amaze how many posts a topic can get in the span of an evening around here. Often by time I get to a topic it's pages in :D

I agree with Rol... It's just not that a good a game. Wii owners are PICKY. They want good experiences games that can be played over a long period of time. RS2 is too highly repetitive with poor experience advancement. Highly repetitive games work very well, but only in short burst like Bejeweled and other puzzle games. Picky gamers have a low tolerance in shoveling the same crap experience for more than 15m in long runs like FPS levels like RS2.

The local MP and Launch title were RS1 only saving grace for it. Both of which were not present.

However with that. I think RS2 was an awesome premise. WW Samurai East?  total awesome. It just needed to be better designed. A third person view would have improved it. More focus on moving around than just adding Sword swipes to an FPS. This game would have gone a long way to be a little more movement like AC from Ubisoft. It's just the premise of the world style didn't match well with corridor level design.

But hey. It wouldn't be the Wii if good game making decisions were actually done and instead of the shoving perceived market elements.

I have no idea what you're babbling about.

Games like Halo and CoD are considered core by the industry. Your rant isn't gonna change that.