direct from IGN. How do they get all this info. Its just fantastic!

It’s Red Steel 2 day on IGN. We’ve got the exclusive hands-on, loads of direct-feed and screenshots, and to round everything off, an interview with creative director Jason Vandenberghe, who offers details below about the first-person shooter’s story, setting, art style, MotionPlus support and why it all took so long to finally get here.

Q: What can you tell us about the hero and the story in Red Steel 2?

Jason: Our hero is a swordsman and a gunslinger, a member of a reclusive clan of protectors. He’s been travelling for a time, sent away for mysterious reasons… and when he finally returns to his home town, he discovers that he has rather suddenly become the last surviving member of his clan. He finds to his horror that his people have all been wiped out by an unknown villain, and chaos rules the streets.

On his return, the swordsman is attacked by members of the Jackals – violent motorcycle-riding thugs, and is taken for a wild ride… but he isn’t so easy to kill.

Craving revenge, the swordsman sets out to find out who is behind the murder of his people… and exact whatever revenge he can manage against them for what they’ve done. Along the way, he’ll struggle to find a way to convince the people of Caldera to defend themselves against these brutal thugs who have turned his hometown into a warzone.

Q: Can you tell us more about the setting?

Jason: It’s a city in a mythical Nevada desert, in a version of ‘now’ that’s recognizable as modern, but with the volume turned way up. It’s a city where Eastern and Western culture have been smashed together into a hodge-podge jumble – rice bowl restaurants, gas stations, Japanese shops, and American steakhouses all compete on the same block. Dojos, saloons, tea houses, and gun shops…

The desert is the hot, dry, sun-cracked desert of the imagination. Vultures, tumbleweeds, and roving packs of biker samurais are the main inhabitants.
It’s a modern Wild Wild East.

Everything about the setting reflects this jumble: the world, the characters, the music, the gameplay, the story – it’s never one or the other, always both.

How did you get this idea for the setting?

Jason: We started with our gameplay: the sword and the gun. Everything comes from that, really. We asked ourselves, with these weapons, where do we want to be? The katana itself made the first part of our answer simple: Asia will always be one pillar of any Red Steel experience. So, we asked ourselves: if the “natural home” of our sword is the Far East, what is the “natural home” of our gun? We could have gotten into a chicken-and-egg problem here – because, of course, we can choose what gun the player uses. But, for us, the classic .45 caliber revolver is such a great weapon that this part was easy, too. What’s the “natural home” of the revolver? The Far West – specifically places like what you find in the films of Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, etc…). So, our setting: Far East meets Far West, in a modern time. The more we worked with these ideas, the cooler we felt it was … and here we are.

Q: Why did you go with this very specific Artistic Direction?

Jason: It’s more fun this way. Our look is what we think of as a “game look” – it looks like a game. We’re not trying to make a movie game, or a simulation, or anything like that. We want every piece of what we give the player to be focused on having fun fighting with a sword and a gun. Of course, the limited resources on the Wii were a factor for us, but our main focus was finding a look that fit our game feel and setting, that really excites us (and then, hopefully, our players).

Additionally, we wanted our look to give our designers the best tools to make the game really fun – and for melee combat that means strong feedback, big effects … we didn’t want the look and the gameplay to fight with each other. We wanted a look that made the game design better, and a design that made the look better.

We think we’ve found what we were looking for with what we’re currently calling a “graphic novel” approach. Our references are very diverse (Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz for Elektra Assassin, Akira, Gunm…). We’ve pulled out some of the details from the world, but left it a grungy, dirty place: a look with strong contrasts but with a good dose of reality underneath. We don’t want to over-spend on details that don’t make the game better, but we still want the world to seem real.

It’s a difficult balance to strike, and we will no doubt be working to perfect it, but we’re pretty excited about it.

Q: How is the Wii Motion Plus implemented within the game? What does it brings to the gameplay?

Jason: When we received advance prototype versions of the Wii MotionPlus, and took some time to see what it could do, we realized that it was the solution we had needed to make the new style of gameplay, we had been experimenting with, work. It’s an integral part of the game, and therefore Red Steel 2 is Wii MotionPlus exclusive.

First: the Wii MotionPlus gives us 1:1 recognition of your movements. This means that all your motions with the Wii Remote are precisely reproduced within the game. The angle and direction of your slash is directly reflected in-game. That’s pretty cool.

Second: the Wii MotionPlus measures the power of your swing. The harder you swing the Wii Remote, the harder you swing your sword in the game, which has become one of our basic building blocks – against most enemies and challenges, the strength of your swing is crucial to gameplay.

Third: The Wii MotionPlus allows us to measure your movements even when you’re not pointing at the screen. What does this mean for us? As an example, we are experimenting with a feature that allows the player to point off-screen as a way of turning more quickly, so that advanced players can have more fine-tune control of their motions.

We think it’s cool that Red Steel was released alongside the original Wii, which changed so many things about gaming; and now Red Steel 2 will be released alongside the Wii MotionPlus, which we believe again opens up a new world of gameplay.

Q: What are the key points of the gameplay?

Jason: Red Steel is a first-person action game where, for the first time, you can fight with both sword and gun, at any time. The possibilities of this kind of combat are very broad – you will fight enemies who are attacking you with ranged weapons, with melee weapons, and plenty with both. You’ll fight groups of similar enemies, and then mixed packs of different types. Sometimes you’ll fight one enemy at a time, and sometimes up to six at once (which can get pretty hectic), all in a wide variety of different interactive fighting environments.

You will need to learn which kinds of attacks work best against which enemies, what kinds of defensive moves you can use, and who to attack first!
Our combat works with an intuitive enemy-locking mechanism. Players can customize this to give them the level of control they are most comfortable with (from full auto-lock to full manual).

You will unlock more powerful combos and finish kills as you progress. Your character earns rewards for combat, and knowing which moves to use against which enemies can earn you a higher reward, as an example. Your defenses will also increase as you play, increasing your kit of options (including deflecting bullets with your sword…).

Q: Let’s talk about the enemies, what are the ways to fight them, what’s your strategy when you’re surrounded?

Jason: Fighting in Red Steel 2 is sort of like a first-person brawler. Fighting is an intense, up-close and personal experience, and you need to learn how to move like a swordfighter. Our lock system frees you from having to think too much about looking, and lets you focus on moving.
Enemies are generally either melee fighters or shooters (although later on, you’ll find enemies that can do both equally well). The melee fighters will generally want to charge you, surround you, and beat the snot out of you. The shooters will pick off your health from a distance. You need to pick your priority targets, get to them quickly, and take them out.

You usually have both your sword and your gun available at any time, so switching between ranged and melee combat is as simple as pulling the trigger. This makes dealing with a shooter in the back corner who is bothering you straightforward.

As far as getting surrounded goes, there are several things to keep in mind:
First of all, don’t get surrounded. Your character is very maneuverable in Red Steel 2 – he has a ‘dash’ move that lets you quickly reposition yourself in combat, and if you use this well, you should be able to avoid getting into a bad situation.

Second, if an off-screen enemy is preparing to attack you, a “Z-button” indicator will appear on the corner of the screen – tap Z when you see this, and you will automatically switch lock targets to the attacking enemy, and can either block him, or counterattack. A quick backwards dash will also often do the trick. When fighting stronger enemies, you’ll need to pay attention to each enemy’s attack patterns, strengths, and weaknesses, and find ways to exploit them…

Q: What kind of players did you have in mind when you started designing the game?

Jason: Anyone who wants to hit things with a sword. Our goal, first and foremost, was to make a game for gamers: people who love gaming, people who love action, combat, and people who love to have a great time.
At the same time, we wanted to make sure that every level of skill could play. Different gamers have different levels of physical coordination and strength, and so we want to make sure that anyone who is interested in the experience we’re offering has a chance to play. This means having a wide variety of difficulty settings, and the ability to calibrate the physical experience to your level of comfort.

We’re excited about the higher difficulty levels that will certainly require developing a new set of skills! But, at the same time, in keeping with our “anyone who wants to hit things” credo, we wanted to make sure that gamers who are just looking for a chance to blow off some steam vanquishing badguys could get in the game easily. So, we’re trying to strike a balance: we start with a “pick up and play” experience that’s very accessible, and then add layers of complexity at the higher difficulty settings that make for a very rich experience.

Everyone can play this game. But only a few will beat it on Ninja.

Q: What happened since the release of Red Steel? How come we haven’t heard of you in three years?

Jason: It wasn’t the right time. The original Red Steel was a great proving ground for the team and for a lot of the ideas we had around sword-and-gun fighting; but we couldn’t explore all the ideas we had at that time and we wanted to be sure that the next time we came to the table, we had something definitely great for players, something really new and fun, enriched by the experience we had on the first opus.

Much of our time since the release of Red Steel has been spent prototyping, developing, and experimenting, looking for that special something. When we received the Wii MotionPlus, and discovered what we could do with it, we decided now was the time.

Today, we’re a team of about 100 people. Roughly 50% of the current team are vets from RS1, and the other half are fresh blood, from inside Ubisoft and from elsewhere. It’s been a great mix of talent.

Well what can I say, a few days ago Ubisoft updated there website and putt a lot of information up about Red Steel 2. New trailers, screenshots and more.

IGN also got there share. (wish I could be that lucky!)

You could say that after the release of Red Steel in 2006, Ubisoft’s franchise tucked its tail and ran into a dark cave to hibernate and perhaps regroup, but I prefer to use a different analogy because, having finally played and marveled at Red Steel 2, it seems more accurate. Three years ago, Red Steel was just a caterpillar, but it has with this next installment transformed into and reemerged a butterfly. Dramatic, corny — maybe. I’m certainly not above some theatrics. Yet, I consider myself burned by the original first-person shooter, which showed so much promise that was never tapped — the formula for something special was in place, but it was brutally crushed by an inadequate if not altogether broken control scheme. So when Ubisoft stopped by IGN’s Los Angeles offices to give me an early peek at Red Steel 2, I’ll be honest, I remained the skeptic. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Then, though, the demo began and my reservations were pumped full of bullets and sliced into thirds. I’ll tell you now, whether you loved or hated the original game, forget it because it bears almost nothing, a marriage of gunplay and swordplay aside, in common with its sequel. Steel 2 is shockingly overhauled in every regard — the game that the first should’ve been. And yeah, it’s time to get excited.Let’s start with the presentation. The first game was set in modern day Japan and featured a visual style that fluttered between gritty realism and cartoony flamboyance — see, for example, angry, tattooed Yakuza with near-cel-shaded outlines. It didn’t quite work and I think in the three years since the developer has smartened up to that truth. The result, as Red Steel 2 wears like a badge of honor, is a completely redesigned visual exterior and a welcomed new setting. You play as a gunslinger / swordsman in an alternate future set to the backdrop of a seemingly post-apocalyptic Nevada in which old-fashioned western ideals exist side-by-side with Mad Max-esque motorcycle gangs and desolated cities. If you read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and adored it, you will undoubtedly find yourself in a state very close to nirvana as you run through Red Steel’s 2 diverse collection of abandoned city slums overwrought with crazed, masked swordsmen-gimps and drenched in aesthetics that are very clearly influenced by both eastern and western cultures.

After Red Steel, we really wanted to make a look that was more of a game look. More inspiring and more fun. To me, the look that we have right now is realism and graphic novels. We’re trying to push those two ideas together so you feel like you’ve got real bad guys. It’s like, I believe in this place. But it’s also cool and also challenges your imagination — it’s a little bit exciting,” said Jason Vandenberghe, Red Steel 2’s creative director. “Also, it happens to run a lot better on Wii, which is a really big advantage. We’ve learned a lot in the last few years about what works and what doesn’t on the system. And also, frankly, we really like this kind of look. We’re big fans of the graphic novel approach. So what you’re seeing is what we want to do as well.”

The graphics don’t ever approach gritty realism, but rather are very intentionally crafted to be stylistic if not recognizably artistic. There’s a cel-shaded quality to the characters and worlds and certain particle systems like flames and wind seem to have an almost hand-drawn, comic book quality to them that is simply very pleasing to the eye. Just as impressive to me is that Red Steel 2 is locked at 60 frames per second. Locked. There’s not so much as a hiccup in the E3 demo of the game. It’s quite a feat since the game features remarkably detailed environments skinned with crisp textures and even spits out scenarios with five or six swordsmen attacking simultaneously, all of them running around with fluid animation. Shortly into my demo, I could not help but draw technical parallels to Metroid Prime 3, which also looks amazing and runs beautifully. It’s as though Ubisoft analyzed everything about Retro’s engine ad then simply copied it . “We actually shifted to the Lyn Engine, which is internal Ubisoft tech. It’s being used for a lot of projects and being developed across multiple platforms, but was originally developed specifically for Wii. We were able to start over with an engine that from the beginning gave us a real head start,” said Vandenberghe. This, by the way, is the same engine powering the equally pretty Rabbids Go Home.

As Red Steel 2 begins, you find yourself at a genuine disadvantage. You’re a mystery hero, dressed in your western attire complete with cowboy hat. You’ve awakened in the hot desert to find your hands bound and before you even have a chance to react, you’re being pulled along through cacti and rocks by a long rope tethered to a motorcycle, its rider cackling all the way. Pause for a second. What you will inevitably discover is that you are the last surviving member of a heroic clan sworn to protect the land from evildoers and these dirt bike samurai, the Jackals, are exactly the types of misguided thugs you’d just as soon shoot down as greet. You’ve just returned back from a long voyage and discovered the townspeople of Caldera, your longtime residence, murdered. It’s revenge time, but first you have to stop desert-skiing and figure out a way to gain the upper hand again. Although you contain control of an on-screen reticule, the entire scene plays out as a canned render — you’re dragged along in first-person view until you skid through a fire, your ropes burn off and you shoot the dirt biker in a satisfying explosion. Afterward, the game really starts and you’ll notice some big differences over the original Red Steel.

The demo features several options where difficulty and controls are concerned. Easy mode is obviously for the beginner player, medium for the experienced gamer and ninja mode “for the true master.” The differences lay in enemy strength and numbers as well as the targeting system, I presume. More importantly to anybody who played the first Steel are the control choices — finally. First — and you know this by now — this sequel is all about Wii MotionPlus. I’ll get to that, but a quickie note on the calibration process. Before the game actually begins, you’re asked to calibrate your remote by placing it upside-down on a flat surface for about two seconds. At any time before or in-game, you can semi-customize your controls between three different options: beginner (huge bounding box; drag the screen to turn); standard (the dead zone is a little tighter) and expert (feels exactly like Metroid Prime 3’s advanced setup). On expert, the infrared pointer feels almost right in the same way that Retro’s title does. Games like Medal of Honor Heroes 2 and more recently The Conduit harness more customizable control schemes, but don’t worry because the developer admitted to me that it looked at High Voltage’s shooter as the new control benchmark and as a result, Red Steel will boast a fully customizable scheme — bounding box, turn sensitivity and all. These customization options were omitted from the E3 build to keep players from fiddling and instead stay them focused on shooting and slicing.

Hearing this news is a relief for someone like me who suffered through the controls in the first game. With that in mind, I felt it important enough to quote lead game designer Roman Campos Oriola on the subject. “Internally, for the development of the game, we have all the building box, the acceleration of the camera, and we use MotionPlus when you are off the screen to continue controlling your turning speed and the further you get away from the screen the faster it will turn. That’s also something that you’ll be able to tweak,” he said. “We have all these variables, but for the E3 demo, we didn’t think it was worth it to take time to implement it because it’s a huge amount of work and we didn’t want players at E3 to badly tune their controls so that they’re too messed up. Of course, when the game is released, we’ll have a completely customizable setup.”

Now, I hate to keep making comparisons to Corruption, but it’s unavoidable because both games don nearly identical Wii remote control schemes and they also hum along at the same fluid framerate. So if you want to know how Red Steel 2 feels when you’ve actually got a controller in your hands, fire up Prime 3, switch to the advanced control setting and have a go. The horrific, jittery, slow and mechanical scheme that plagued the original Red Steel is thankfully nowhere to be found in this sequel. Indeed, at one point, you can shoot a can into the air and the control works so well that you can easily keep the combo going into a four, five or six-shot chain. You move speedily along with the nunchuk’s analog stick, aim your powerful pistol with the remote, and fire with the B-trigger. Jumps are context-sensitive. When you run out of bullets, you’ll auto-reload or you can press the minus button to do it manually. Depending on the control scheme you’ve selected, you’ll either auto-lock onto enemies or can alternatively press Z button to enable the lock, tapping to cycle between foes. Gunplay is that simple and it works very well.

Red Steel 2 unfolds more dynamically than its predecessor because gunplay and swordplay are not divided into two very different sections. Rather, you can engage enemies with your pistol or sword depending on your preference, although there will definitely be situations where your blaster alone won’t suffice. Early in the E3 demo, you get the warrior sword and that’s when MotionPlus comes into the gameplay equation. In contrast to swordplay in the original effort, where sword fights felt mechanical and quickly became repetitive, the duels in Steel 2 are much more responsive, speedier, ever-changing and ultimately satisfying. Ubi has devised a mostly intuitive mechanic to switch between your gun and sword and I think it works pretty well. At the simplest level, all you have to do is make a swiping motion and you’ll auto-draw and swipe your sword. Point back at the screen with your remote, press B-trigger and you’ll auto-sheath your blade and shoot your gun wherever your on-screen reticule is aimed. Swipe vertically and your gun is holstered, making way for a quick slash.

It’s that easy and it feels good, but there’s more to it. Hold Z-trigger and you’ll draw your blade and lock onto enemies and items, at which point the screen remains stationary and you can swipe away. You can swipe horizontally, vertically and diagonally and all of your power is measured. Indeed, Ubisoft has developed challenges based on how powerful your swing is. If you don’t swing through with fast, arching gestures, your sword will not penetrate certain bamboo gates or the armor of well-defended enemies. It’s great. Hold A button to parry. While holding A, you can tilt the remote horizontally or vertically and in near-one-to-one accuracy your character’s arm will do the same, blocking various attacks from enemies. Unfortunately, you can’t actually lower a horizontal parry so that you could, say, block high, middle and low offensives — that functionality is not in place — but even without it, the system is very reactive and offers a great degree of control.

What I really like about Steel 2’s control scheme is that you never feel as though you’re being forced into one formation or another. As you make your way through the desolate world, shooting down dilapidated vending machines and cracking open safes (hold C button, bring the remote to your ear and tilt until you hear an audio cue from the speaker), you’ll gain access to lots of gold, which can be used to purchase various new abilities and upgrades. I saw five slots for these new abilities in the E3 demo, although none of them were open. That said, the developer did demonstrate one such character enhancement to me and it’s one that can also be seen in our exclusive direct-feed videos. It’s called ‘lift’ and it’s extremely cinematic and fun to perform. You charge your sword by holding A and B-trigger together and then swipe at enemies to literally knock them into the air, at which time you can choose to whip out your pistol and hammer bullets their way or soar into the air after them and continue slashing them all the way back down again. I played through the demo a dozen times in preparation for this preview and not once did I feel locked into swordplay or gunplay when I didn’t want to be. As the lift enhancement proves, you’re able to switch between weapons at random, stringing together blade and gun combos. “The idea is that the lift move that you see at E3 is just meant to tease you, to show you what kind of abilities we want, but not the actual upgrade system,” said Oriola.

For as much as I did see, there’s a lot that I didn’t. I get the feeling that Ubisoft is keeping a tight lid on some key features to come. When asked about whether or not the main character would be able to take part in classic-style gunslinger gun duels — the type that always begin with “draw!” — Vandenberghe stopped short of confirming such an inclusion. “Oh, I would love to do that, baby. Wouldn’t that be cool? That would be really cool. I couldn’t talk about it, of course, even if it were something we were actually doing,” he said. Also, it sounds like you will gain access to additional guns and even blades as you advance through the title and can select between them via the D-Pad. This option was not available in the E3 build.

Also absent from the E3 incarnation of Steel 2 is any genuine gore and this is something that will not be remedied for the final game. Red Steel 2 will ship with the same T rating as its predecessor. I asked Vandenberghe why the developer has once more stayed away from blood and guts with a game in which the main character wields a deadly katana sword. “It’s obvious, right, what you would want to do — you’ve got a katana in your hand, right? There’s a whole bunch of gamers out there who are like, you know what I would love to do is cut my component apart. And I’m not disagreeing with you. Absolutely not. I’m looking forward to playing that game,” he replied. “That said, when you put that kind of violence in a game often the game becomes about that kind of violence. That’s now what I’m making here. I’m trying to make a cool sword-fighting experience. That’s what I want to focus on. And as you can see, it’s also a very action experience. It’s about the experience of swinging your sword and hitting things, right? That’s what I want.” Additionally, Ubi is trying to tell a story about a heroic character. He’s a seasoned gunslinger so he’s “not exactly pure,” according to Vandenberghe, but at the end of the day he’s out for justice and not necessarily to bloodily dismember anybody who crosses his path.

The bulk of the roughly 15-minute E3 demo is set to one small portion of Caldera, but there’s plenty more to see in the final incarnation. The settings are all melanges of Asian and Western designs. “There will be the temple places. And then we want to go out into the canyons. A ghost town thing. We’re going to get on a train at one point and ride across the desert a bit. Mining town. That sort of thing,” explained Vandenberghe. The demo finishes as you square off in a sword fight against a hulking samurai thug who hurls a giant mallet at you if you come too close. According to Vandenberghe, he’s just a mini-boss, which begs the question, what do actual bosses look like? There are three major families — three major groups of enemies. The aforementioned Jackals, motorcycle thugs with swords. They’re dangerous, but not well-trained. Enforcers are the villain’s personal army. They come with armor, better training, they can block and they’re more dangerous. And then there are the ninja family. These guys are the assassins and protectors of the villain. And there are five or six different versions of each family. “When I design characters, I like to start with the emotions for the player. The Jackals are really about power. I want to feel powerful and I want to have a good time, right? When the Enforcers show up, you should feel like, okay, now I have to play. I’m on my game now. These guys are tough. And when the ninja show up, you should be like, ‘Oh sh!$!,’ added Vandenberghe.

Ubi is planning an eight-to-twelve-hour game with Red Steel 2 and the title has shot up like a bullet to the top tier of my most wanted list. The developer seems to have taken note of all the complaints surrounding the first game, started fresh with a stunning new engine and incorporated MotionPlus support for truly engaging sword combat. Asked why readers like you should be so excited, Vandenberghe’s honest enthusiasm was hard to miss. “This is the game that will finally give you first-person sword-fighting the way you wanted it, man,” he said. “And I’m absolutely delighted to be able to say that and feel like it’s not bullsh%@! If you like swords, this is the game for you.”

http://wii.ign.com/articles/988/988473p3.html

At its pre-E3 2009 press conference, publisher Ubisoft confirmed that Red Steel 2 will ship with MotionPlus bundled in. No price details were given.

Red Steel 2 requires MotionPlus to play. Gamers plug the accessory in and gain near-one-to-one control of the main character’s sword.

Hi, all!

Just want to inform you that you can pre-order Red Steel 2 right now!

http://pre-order.redsteel2.net/

UK, July 28, 2008 – Ubisoft executive director Alain Corre has confirmed the existence of the long-rumoured, not-very-secret Red Steel 2, with Corre noting the game has been in development “for many months now”.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Corre admitted the original Red Steel – which launched alongside the Wii in 2006 to mixed critical reception – was “a bit rushed”, highlighting the “missing” precision of the in-game sabre as one area ripe for improvement.

However, Corre made specific mention of Nintendo’s recently announced MotionPlus add-on, noting that Red Steel 2 is “the typical product that will appreciate the new device”, with the possibility for 1:1 motion control helping Ubisoft “be even more precise in what we do with the product”.

Of course, Corre stopped short of confirming Red Steel 2 as a Wii exclusive, merely hinting that MotionPlus would be a good fit for its forthcoming follow-up. However, while we wait for official word from Ubisoft’s mouth itself, feel free to infer from his comments whatever you see fit.

Would like to welcome everybody to the hottest Red Steel 2 site on the planet!

At RedSteel2.net you will be able to find all the hottest news, screenshots, videos, trailers, wallpapers and much more!

So once again welcome and thank you and I hope that you will become a regular member.

With best regards The gamer (Max)

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