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Review : Ninja Gaiden 2 for Xbox 360
Rating : 97% Completely Flipping Awesome
Ninja Gaiden 2 is the biggest hyper-kinetic hyper-violent action game of the year so far. It is Uber-cool. the exercise in extreme video game violence was developed by Tecmo's Team NINJA headed by half crazy heavy metal video game designer Itagaki-san (looks like his last one at Tecmo) and published by Microsoft exclusively for the Xbox 360. It would sort of suck to not have an Xbox 360 to play this tubular radical to the maximum game on. The folks over at Xbox has a hit on their hands with this one.
This is the first true sequel to the Xboxen Uno's Ninja Gaiden since Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden Sigma were sort of remixes of the first game. Well I shouldn't say the first Ninja Gaiden game since Tecmo also made an arcade game back in the 80s, three sweet 8-bit Nintendo games, a PC Engine game and a 16-bit remix collection of the three NES games for the Super Nintendo.
Ninja Gaiden 2 was built on a completely new combat intensive game engine with lightning fast high-definition graphics and fluid eye burning flipping out ninja combat. This is exactly the kind of game that makes me glad to be a console gamer. (PC games are a bit to slow and clumsy for me). There is no "next gen grey brown blur" in this game. The backgrounds of this sci-fi Tokyo and New York made me appreciate the VGA connection on my HDTV. It is not for everyone, it is a hard core action game to the core and even the easiest difficulty setting is going to take some decent reflexes to get through. It is hard as heck but it is quite a rush. I am proud of every achievement that I have so far. This game made me sit closer to my HDTV on the edge of my couch.
The game follows super Ninja master Ryu Hayabusa who has to fight armies of ninjas, demons and monsters who are a part of an evil plot to open up the doors to the underworld and let the demons take over the world. In order to save humanity Ryu has to kill a lot of bad guys with some sharp instruments of death. Blood spews out of wounds, limbs get severed and heads get chopped off in lightning fast fatality moves against weakened enemies. I have a good guess that Itadaki-san watched a lot of "Chambara" bloody samurai and ninja movies growing up. There is enough gore and spurting blood to make Kill Bill and Evil Dead look tame. Ryu kills more bad ninjas before asa-gohan than other video game ninjas do all day. It's all over the top and in good fun. The suspension of reality is pretty much established once you get ninjas fighting hundreds of demons. Oh it is rated M for Mature for obvious reasons.
It is a single player only game but there is online sharing of saved replays and leader board ranking. I don't think a multiplayer game would even work. I mean it is a game about one hard core guy killing a million bad dudes. It would not work in multiplayer since it would pretty much be instant kills.
Now I have to take an issue with some of the complaints that other reviewers have had with this game. I don't know what people who say that there were frame rate issues were smoking. It looks like glorious lightning fast eye candy. The complaints about the camera can be easily solved by hitting the right trigger to focus where you are looking, if you tap it once and a while it can be a lot more responsive than an auto camera on rails. I do think that this game has a lot to offer over Ninja Gaiden Black but of course they used the conventions they set in the previous games as a starting point. That is the crucible of scrutiny that big name game sequels face. They can't be completely different than conventions and expectations set by the predecessor.
If I had to complain about something I would say that there were some parts that took me a while to figure out the next place to go. It got a little lonely since I had taken out all the bad guys in the area. Plus I have yet to find any pirates to fight. I could see how this game would encourage you to play the same level over again and get a higher completion level, plus the combat is a lot of fun.
Oh yeah, Ryu is almost never stealthy and quiet, he just flips out and totally kills dudes. It is a complete polar opposite of Tenchu-Z (Yes it seams that I am still the only one that has love for Tenchu-Z on 360). Someone asked me if it had the same jiggly female physics as the Dead or Alive games, since most of the bad guys are demons and monsters luckily I have not found any excessive jiggily physics.
This game has some of the best responsive controls out there. Once you learn how it becomes instinctive to slice and dice the bad guys. You can't just mash the buttons on this one. Blocking, dodging, parrying followed by a rigorous amount of properly timed slicing is essential to make it through the combat. This is one of those games that is going to take a long time to master on a high difficulty and bragging rights on your Xbox Live friend leader board are going to be hard earned with a tasty side dish of respect.
If you didn't see the previous post here is my video of this game again.
Until Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 hit later this year Ninja Gaiden 2 is going to be one of the biggest Xbox games on the market.
I can say this with no hyperbole and exaggeration that this is simple the best ninja game ever made. The awesomeness of this game flows like a river of blood spurting under high pressure from a razor sharp slice of the katana.
Jake at June 3, 2008 
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Comments
Nice review. I sucked at playing the OG Xbox game, so I kinda swore off the series. By the sound of it, so has Itakagi...
Posted by: hellblazerusa at June 3, 2008 3:04 AM
Oh Itakagi want's to run his own studio or he wants a multi-billion yen pay increase. The Hollywood drama aspects of it are amusing. If I were Microsoft I would offer to hire Itakagi san and give him his own studio in Japan.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at June 3, 2008 9:21 AM
COOL, I played it myself for a few moments yesterday and it is great, not perfect but really bloody funny.
Posted by: Jim at June 3, 2008 1:10 PM
Another great review from 8bitjoystick.com -- unfortunately you didn't bother to finish this game before reviewing it either. Seriously, why should we believe anything you say in your reviews (or anywhere else) if you're not going to do your research?
Posted by: uhhh at June 5, 2008 1:15 AM
Jesus didn't I go over this? Also way to be a man and bone up and post a real name or email. Oh wait, you didn't do that!
Having to finish a game before reviewing it is idiotic for most people with lives and jobs. I had about three days to play the game. Guess what. I like it.
But since you didn't read my previous article on when to write game reviews.
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_how_long_should_i_play_a_game_before_reviewing_it.php
"Video games are not like books, movies, food and music. If you are writing a review of a CD it takes you about an hour and a half. If your reviewing a movie you spend the two hours to watch it. The time you need to review food or drink is to just eat or drink it. Man I should review more snack products. However video games can go on for an indeterminate amount of time to play through. Some games take weeks to unlock all the content. Some games you only need a few moments to tell that it's going to be awesome or total crap."
"I've been reviewing games on 8bitjoystick.com for over five years now and It is my policy to play a game for as long as I see fit before I feel that I have enough to make a informed review and basis of my opinion on. I don't do this website for a day job and I have to spend my days not playing video games or writing about them. I feel that I have done enough research to know what I'm writing about. However if you disagree with something I write I've always whole heartedly encouraged reader comments and I do take them to heart."
Guess what. I still like Ninja Gaiden 2.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at June 5, 2008 1:55 AM
