In follow up to the article I posted last week regarding Miyamoto’s statement that Nintendo didn’t deliver enough “fun games”, This article has surfaced saying this year is going to be better, citing Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M, a new Legend of Zelda and Pikmin.

Based on this, it still seems to me that Nintendo is going to do its part in delivering 2-3, assuming that at least one of these titles gets pushed back or just plain doesn’t live up to the pedigree which I think is pretty reasonable fail rate if not generous. What wasn’t mentioned unfortunately was any 3rd party title. I don’t know if it’s Nintendo not working closely enough with other publishers, or simply not showing support at times like these to endorse upcoming 3rd party products, or they simply don’t exist… I’d be concerned about the platform but the install base is huge, the question is… what the hell are wii gamers doing with them?

I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to Super Mario Galaxy 2, as for Zelda and Metroid, I’m going to have to wait and see… The trailer for Metroid was interesting but the minimap pretty much looked exactly like Red Steel which concerns me… if this game invokes the same sort of disconnect I’m feeling with Red Steel 2, I’ll be severely disappointed in it. I haven’t heard or seen anything at all about a new Zelda game at this point though..

Box Art

So amongst my pillaging of Just Cause 2 over the weekend, I managed to squeeze in a little time for Red Steel 2, and while I haven’t finished the game yet, I did learn a few things about it that I thought worth sharing.

In all the coverage leading up to the release of Red Steel 2, I was drawn to the art style, I do like some cell shading in my games here and there to mix things up. And the idea of sword play on the Wii is now and will always be appealing to me, because deep down I am a ninja… The deciding factor for me was going to be that mechanics of the sword play actually working, and after the reviews went up saying that they did I went ahead and pulled the trigger and picked it up.

I concur with the findings that the controls are solid once you get used to going from swordplay to shooting/navigating, however the swordplay still feels closer to gesture controls than a true implementation of MotionPlus for the most part which was somewhat disappointing to me, but sort of understandable. Performing special attacks is easy, and makes it fun to mix up your combat. While you’re in combat the experience is very immersive and because of the controls interactive nature, you really do get into it especially during boss fights where you’re dodging heavy attacks and looking for weaknesses and openings.

Unforutnately however, once combat stops you realize that you are in a pretty small area with a few doors, and each time you go through one you need to wait for 15-20 seconds before you get into the next, which may or may not have some action for you. Instead, you frustratingly try to smash boxes and barrels for loose change. This is a problem because it completely takes me out of the experience. Instead of being so wrapped up in the action that I don’t realize how much time I spent, I am pretty much saying ok, one more room then I’ll play something else. It’s shame really, but I think this gives more credence to my opinion on Move. And while I still think this game is pretty good so far, and I will probably give it a strong recommendation for Wii owners, I think if this game weren’t on the underpowered Wii it could have been much better.

I mentioned via twitter that my copies of Just Cause 2 and Red Steel 2 had come in on Friday, so I’ve spent some time with both of those, although, significantly more with Just Cause… my goodness there is a lot to do in that game… if you have, or anyone in your family has ever had, OCD… stay the hell away from this game… I’ll be writing up initial impressions of the both of them either tomorrow, or Monday, but they are both pretty good. The mechanics in Red Steel work surprisingly well, and it’s fun, but it really doesn’t feel Motion Plus-y… I’ll go into more details later.