You and I probably feel the same way about Red Steel. I didn’t like the first one, and only the promise of Wii MotionPlus controls managed to get me interested in Red Steel 2.

We all saw the live demonstration of the game at Nintendo’s press conference, but I hit the show floor earlier today with a clear goal in mind: find Red Steel 2, play it, and find out if the enhanced motion controls make the franchise as tactile and enjoyable as it by every right should be.

Hit the jump to see if it delivered.

Nope.

The issue with the swordplay in the first Red Steel was that all the attacks were really just button inputs mapped to specific Wiimote waggles. When you waggled in a not-quite-right way, the attack wouldn’t go through as you intended. This led to a lot of frantic, angry waggling as gamers across the world grunted, “why the fuck won’t it recognize my swing?!”

The main difference with Red Steel 2 was that I found myself grunting, “why the fuck won’t it recognize I’m swinging really hard?”