Red Steel
Red Steel is an Ubisoft video game in development for Nintendo's upcoming Wii console. It is being developed by the Ubisoft Paris studio. It was unveiled in the May 2006 issue of Game Informer. Red Steel was the first game for the Wii platform to release in-game screenshots, thus giving the public an idea of what the console is capable of. It is currently scheduled to be released on November 19, 2006 along with Nintendo's fifth generation console, Wii.[1] A version of the game was playable during E³. [2]
Story
Tokai, the antagonist of the game and leader of the Shibuya Giris, attempts to take control of six Yakuza clans, including the Financial Clan, who controls major banks. While Tokai persuades the clans, it is Scott Monroe's (the protagonist) job to convince them to join you and fight Tokai.
At the same time, Scott's fiancee is kidnapped during what was supposed to be his first meeting with her father. He is revealed to be a Yakuza, and gives Scott a Katana to find his captured daughter.
Gameplay
The game will take full advantage of Wii's unique motion-sensitive controller, along with the "nunchuk" attachment. Some ideas of the game that have been confirmed are the use of a katana and a firearm. It has been confirmed that the game will be extremely immersive (e.g. twisting the controller while handling the gun causes the on-screen gun to twist as well). Players can push objects to use them as cover by pushing the controller forward. Shaking the "nunchuk" attachment reloads the gun. The player can also lob grenades in a more realistic fashion, with underhand or overhand, employing the controller as the thing being 'thrown'.
The AI characters can "care for themselves" according to project leader Roman Campos Oriola; enemies will be aggressive, moving around objects and the environment to attack the player (like jumping on a table instead of running around). The developers hold the computer game F.E.A.R. as their standard for the AI.
The AI will also be completely unique, with an option that allows the player to force the enemy mob bosses to surrender, rather than take their lives. This is done by disarming the boss and holding them at the player's mercy instead of killing them. (A Game Informer article mentions this can be done by stopping the katana's swing a fraction of a second before it could inflict a killing blow, or shooting the gun out of their hand.) This actually becomes beneficial, as the bosses may then help the player if the player can convince them to join the player's faction, possibly handing over new weapons or paths. A violent approach will also be possible, but it will not be as beneficial, wise, or encouraged. The bosses' factions may actually join Tokai (instead of the player) in his quest for Yakuza control, making the final confrontation with the mobster more difficult.
It has been suggested that the game will have multiplayer: split-screen multiplayer with traditional deathmatches. According to the project leader, "Perhaps most impressive is the fact that although split-screen reduces the amount of onscreen space you are playing in, you don't have to make smaller movements —you can gesture as wildly as you want, and it won't interfere with the other player's onscreen quadrants."
The game will reportedly place less influence on killing the enemy and a greater influence on defeating them and convincing them to join the player rather than to join the opposing faction. Recklessness will be strongly discouraged by a unique system that adds 'freeze points' for accuracy/efficiency while using one's weaponry. When a certain number of points is accumulated, the player will be able to momentarily freeze time thus allowing for amazingly accurate attacks.
The latest control scheme was revealed in a recent interview. [3] The biggest revelation was that the above nunchuck trigger (the C button) makes the player's character jump, as this functionality was not present in the E3 build. The bottom button (Z) makes him crouch, the B trigger shoots, the D-pad reloads and the A button zooms the player's gun in and out. For sword fighting, the motion sensitivity of the Wii remote controls the katana, and the accelerometer in the nunchuck moves the tanto (short sword).
Another interesting aspect of multiplayer is a when playing a Killer match, the remote acts as a telephone. It rings for the player to place it against the player's ear. Then mission objectives are given without the other players being able to hear what it is.
Characters
- Scott Monroe: (the Hero) a man without a description
- Miyu: Scott's fiancee
- Isao Sato: Miyu's father and Scott's future father in law before he is murdered
- Tokai: Main antagonist; takes control of six Yakuza companies
- Harry Tanner: Teaches player how to use firearms
- Otori: Former Yakuza member; teaches player katana combat
Graphics
The May issue of Game Informer magazine has the first ever screenshots of this game, Polaroid photos of which leaked onto blogs and fan sites all over the Internet. Ubisoft Paris claim they are rendered in real time. The demonstration of the game during Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference seems to confirm that the in-game graphics are very similar to the shots seen in the magazine. Since the E3 demo, Red Steel is going through a major overhaul, to improve the graphics further.
The associate producer of Red Steel Jean-Baptiste Duval, said in an interview with Australian video game magazine Hyper that the game runs on a modified Unreal Engine 2.5. He said that much of the Ubisoft staff had worked on the engine and knew its strengths and weaknesses. The graphics of the game have been designed to achieve a defining artistic style rather than photorealism.
In the September edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine of Europe, there was a featured article that looked at the newest build of the game. The magazine staff who had the opportunity to play it said that the graphics are looking far more incredible than before, and that "People should be expecting visuals that are a more pretty version of Resident Evil 4". It should be noted that as Europe is a PAL region, the demo was not played in 480p mode and thus the game may look more impressive on a 480p NTSC television. The game is still undergoing visual developments in its final stages, so Ubisoft said that people should not expect this to be the final quality.
Weapons
(names are subject to change)
Melee
- Katana-Giri
- Tantō - Can be used with the katana using Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū style or using two of them.
Firearms
- Pistol - The Steyr M-1A.
- Pistol - Colt M1911A1 Goverment
- A pistol resembling a Revolver of sorts.
- A pistol resembling a Desert Eagle.
- Machine pistol - MP7 shown in the new trailer.
- Pump action Shotgun - The Remington 870.
- H&K G3 automatic rifle
- Grenade - A frag grenade that can be tossed even while holding another weapon.
- Submachine gun - The Uzi (due to the one handed use seen it is likely the player will be able to use two in an Akimbo fashion).
- USAS-12 - A automatic shotgun seen in the latest Red Steel videos. [1]
- FN FAL - A rifle resembling the FAL seen in a video of Red Steel. [2]
- Sniper Rifle - The AWP
Reaction
Red Steel has the dubious honor of being the first third party game on the Wii to have screenshots released. This caused a massive amount of excitement among Nintendo enthusiasts. However, the game was met with a lot of initial negative response at its showing at E3 2006. Many critics complained that the controls were too loose and that the sword fighting portions did not mimic the player's movement with the Wii Remote. Ubisoft later announced that they got the Wii Remote development kits about a month before E3 2006, so they couldn't make the game function in the style they wanted it to be. Ubisoft has taken this criticism into account, and has announced that the game is being fine tuned to please gamers when it releases. Since E3, it has been rumored that the updated version mimics sword movement and fixes many of the problems present at E3, though Ubisoft has since denied this claiming that mimicking exact movements would be too difficult. However it has been released by Ubisoft that sword movement now more closely mimics the player's movements.
Gallery
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Recent, updated graphics for Red Steel from Ubisoft 27/07/2006
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Recent, updated graphics for Red Steel from Ubisoft 27/07/2006
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Recent, updated graphics for Red Steel from Ubisoft 27/07/2006
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Updated graphics for Red Steel from Ubisoft 14/07/2006
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Updated graphics for Red Steel from Ubisoft 14/07/2006
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Official Boxart
