Red Steel 2 released on March 23, 2010 as a Wii exclusive, that was also a WM+ exclusive title...meaning Red Steel 2 isn't/wasn't playable without a WM+ unit. Red Steel 2 released with a software only version of the game for $49.99, and a Wii MotionPlus bundled version for $59.99.
Red Steel 2 saw its first price drop just 4 months after it released, in July 2010. The MSRP for the software only version dropped from $49.99, down to $39.99; and the WM+ bundle dropped from $59.99, down to $49.99. The game has since seen another price drop, now with the regular version selling for $19.99, or less; and the WM+ bundle selling for $29.99, or less.
How many hours have Wii owners reported playing Red Steel 2 in the last year, with 371 days reported? Let's take a look!
 |
| Hours shown are for United States of America Wii owners, not world-wide. |
Red Steel 2 now has 44,589 Wii owners reporting game-play hours, through the Wii's Nintendo Channel.
Reporting Player Increase:
How many players has Red Steel 2 seen increased in reporting data since it first debuted in May 2010, and since the last report in December?
Red Steel 2 has seen an increase of 37,782 players reporting data, since it first debuted in May; and Red Steel 2 has seen an increase of about 10,080 players reporting data, just since December 27.
Average & Total Game-Play Hours Reported:
Red Steel 2 now has 429,025 Total Hours of game-play reported, an increase of 89,154 Total Hours since December 27; and it's an increase of 371,287 Total Hours since the game first debuted in May 2010.
Red Steel 2's average play-time is now 9 Hours 37 Minutes "Per person" reporting data, which is a decrease of 14 minutes from the average recorded on December 27, but it's an increase of 1 Hour 7 Minutes more than the average "Per person" was when it first debuted.
Red Steel 2's average play-time per session is now just over 1 Hour 49 Minutes.
Sales Ranks & Advertised Prices:
Red Steel 2's
Amazon.com sale rank is #1,503, and it's currently listed for $16.47.Red Steel 2's Wii MotionPlus bundle
Amazon.com sale rank is #3,172, and it is currently listed for $24.75 + 3.99 shipping from a third party vendor.(Sales ranks and advertised prices recorded around 12:30AM, on 3-31-11)
Review Score Averages:
Red Steel 2's "professional" review score average is 80.62%, based on 47 reviews on GameRankings.com.
Red Steel 2 has a 4 out of 5 Stars rating on Amazon.com, based on 41 customer reviews for just the software version of the game; while the WM+ bundle for the game has a 4.5 out of 5 Stars rating based on 18 customer reviews.
Red Steel 2's customer review score averages are 85.76%, when the reviews are converted to a 100% review scale.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Filtered Thoughts:
I still wonder why Red Steel 2 didn't include any sort of multi-player, though I know Jason Vandenberghe (creative director) stated the development team was concentrating on the game's single-player campaign, making sure it was solid. While concentrating on the game's single-player campaign perhaps helped initially with some decent reviews for the game early on, I think it was the fact the game only had a single-player campaign that kept it from selling better than it did.
I know there have been several regular readers here that have commented things like Red Steel 2 was "lacking in content", and it had "an extremely short campaign, no replay value whatsoever". I think this word-of-mouth probably spread quickly about the game, and from the game-play data reported over the last year, it does appear that Wii owners are completing Red Steel 2 just once, and then moving on.
Hopefully Ubisoft learned a lot while developing Red Steel 2 though, and perhaps the WM+ controls will be used in another Wii FPS, perhaps even another Red Steel game. If any of you haven't seen any trailers/videos of Red Steel 2, here's one for you to watch:
While I still haven't played Red Steel 2, I am now in possession of a Wii MotionPlus unit of sorts...as I now own a Nyko Wand+ controller...so, perhaps one day soon, I will play Red Steel 2!
Questions:
Has this game crossed any of your radars recently? Also, have any of you tried Nyko's Wand+ controller with Red Steel 2, as well as the regular Wii MotionPlus unit? If so, could you tell the difference with input from the Wand+ controller compared to the regular WM+ unit; perhaps one being better than the other?
If anybody is interested in Red Steel 2, you can see prices for both versions of the game on Amazon.com linked below:
