Ninja Gaiden II

Aug. 7, 2008

For my first game, I decided to go with a blockbuster-level game. I wanted to get some game I had no pre-existing knowledge on, but I didn't want to have to explain away the weird looks that the Blockbuster guy would give me when I signed up for a Game Pass and followed that up by renting TMNT.

Category

Hack-and-slash

Pros

• It's fucking sweet to be a ninja. I saw the blood on the blade and I orgasmed when Hyabusa flung it off before sheating it. Cutting people to pieces is always fun.
• The game felt like it was taking my crude ideas and making them into some beautiful killing action. Yet at the same time, the fighting was definitely something that would take skill to master.
• All the action and fighting is extremely cool. Oh wait, I mentioned that already. Well fuck it, it is.

Cons

• Anti-gravity boobs. They're so incredibly distracting (and not in the good way).
• Hyabusa's shiny pants. What the fuck?
• Voice actors seemed to take lessons from House of the Dead 2. Also, I wanted Hyabusa to have a much deeper voice.
• Obliterate got really old after the first 100 times.
• What the fuck story? The first level has you running after someone but I have no idea how you decide to find that person. The answer is that you're magically being guided.
• Linear gameplay. I had this weird thought, that it feels like you could sit in one room and fight the same baddies in order and it'd probably be just the same game.
• The bane of every game's existence, the camera was a fucking travesty. As much as the game felt like it was assisting my fighting, it made me hate it for the camera. It seems like the game is purposely doing little for you, meaning you have complete control over the camera. And the controls for the camera were good, but I sure as hell couldn't use them when I was concentrating on fighting. The camera needs an EZ mode or something for idiot players like me.

Verdict

One hour was enough for me. It would be more fun to watch a good player beat the game, though.