Post by The Chupster on Jun 10, 2008 13:48:18 GMT -5
Just a short review- I mean, anyone who's played the series, particularly Ninja Gaiden (XBox), NG Black or NG Sigma knows what the game's about.
Now, I'm a lil old school about the series- I played the original in the arcade and the first 2 NES offerings, which while they were so, SO awesome for the time, don't hold up very well today and don't really seem to fit into the continuity anyway. I also never finished the XBox one- probably got about halfway through before I gave it up, which was just dumb, but y'know how it is- sometimes you have to trade a game and stuff.
At the time, the XBox version of the game was one of the slickest, fastest, most oh-my-God-I-just-instantly-fell-in-love kind'a games out there. If you played it, you either loved it or hated it, but no matter what, you had to admit that it was pretty as hell and ran like a DREAM- smooth as silk and bloody, and made you feel like a complete badass as you walloped your way through hordes of ninjas, bad bad demony types, and bosses that just seemed to get bigger and more awe-inspiring as the game went.
They just took all of that and cranked it to 11.
If you have anything remotely resembling a good home theater system- I'm talking HDTV and even a half-decent sound system- THIS IS THE GAME YOU WANT.
(And yeah, there's a demo on Live, so grab that if you want.)
Granting that I just revamped our living room in a major way, mounting the TV to the wall, putting up bookshelves, "installing" a new home theater system (which currently has all the speakers just pointed at the couch, but that'll get fixed this weekend) and heavy curtains and blinds to keep out light, glare and outside noise, I can truly say that Ninja Gaiden 2 is just about the perfect game to test out a new home theater- even one that isn't even done. From the nearly crystal-clear HD graphics (though there are some jaggies on, say, Rachael's hair) to the thunderously wicked music and beyond exceptional sound effects blasting throughout the room courtesy of a Dolby 5.1 optical digital setup, I've gotta tell you guys- it doesn't get any better than this. I mean, yeah, the larger the system and whatnot, but I didn't even have the theater cranked and room reverberated with the clanging of swords, muffled kicks and just the damn game in general. And God- the occasions towards the beginning when I'd get grappled and stabbed with an exploding shuriken, the explosion sounded like exactly that: something fucking blowing up in my living room.
If you need one game to show off your home theater setup, this is it. And the great part is, it isn't just the little frilly stuff or the presentation- this game makes you feel like the biggest badass in the world.
Chuck Norris has NOTHING on Ryu Hayabusa.
Limbs and blood fly liberally and all over. Executions are slick and so well animated that it makes you wonder if they just motion captured some guy stabbing 8 kinds of hell out of some bums somewhere or something. You're typically fighting off 3-6 guys at a time (and occasionally more than that), and that's just the regular stuff- next thing you know you're facing bosses that just seem to get bigger and badder, and they AREN'T pushovers. Yeah, you can find a weakness or a pattern, but that doesn't mean you win- it means you have a CHANCE of winning, IF you can exploit it without getting your head sliced off and shoved up your ass.
Don't get me wrong; when I went to Target and saw that special this week with the games, I didn't even know Ninja Gaiden 2 had come out yet. I literally wasn't keeping any kind of tabs on it and had absolutely no interest in snagging it. But 10 minutes with the demo- and now over an hour running through the first two massive, gorgeous, badass levels- and the $60 I dropped on Ninja Gaiden 2 seems almost predestined, because NOW is when I finally got the living room together, NOW is when the HD setup is finally up on the wall and blasting through the living room, and NOW is when Ninja Gaiden 2 just happens to pop up and show me what next generation gaming is REALLY all about.
I'm not saying you need the best setup in the world to enjoy it, either. I'm sure it's phenomenal no matter what you play it on. But I AM saying that if you have a home theater and you DON'T have this game, you're missing out on the gaming equivalent of a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings HD movie marathon. Yes, it's just that damn good.
But Chupa, isn't there ANYTHING wrong with the game?
Well, yeah. Here's a quick list of what I've noticed so far, and I read a bit about some people with their complaints online, but I think they're being bitchy little bastards, so here's the skinny.
1. Each chapter opens with text. Given how excellent the in-game engine looks and how well they utilize it for the cutscenes, I could've done with a 5-minute flick here and there giving me the story instead of a one-paragraph exposition piece. And I wouldn't care, but the game is so immersive and each cutscene is just so awesome that limiting large chunks of info to text just seems a little out there- but it could be worse, I guess.
2. The afore-mentioned jaggies. You won't see them often or on much, but when one of the first things you see is Rachael's hair jagging up your HD picture, you tend to go, WTF??? But then you don't see any other jaggies through the rest of the game. Or at least the first two chapters. Only when she's around.
3. Slow down! No, that's not a command; occasionally when the game gets REALLY ambitious and tosses a shitload at you, the game slows down. But it's weird- it's not like the framerate slows down; it's like they locked the game so that instead of the framerate getting choppy, the game just slows down a tad. It's noticeable, and it's annoying at first, but it's almost a blessing when you're hacking your way through like 12 guys or whatever.
That's it. I've heard that there's some worse slowdown somewhere later in the game and a lot of people on forums elsewhere are acting like it's a gamebreaker, and I can't see how it could be with a game that's just this frickin' good, but some people just have to hate on stuff. I dunno.
So bottom line, if you like Ninja Gaiden, you'll like 2. If you like home theater showiness, you've LOVE 2. And if you just like being a badass ninja that likes taking other badass ninjas, demons, ninja-demons, demony ninjas and other assorted baddies apart into their component limbs, then this is most definitely the game for you- they just don't get much better than this!
/wall-o'-text
Now, I'm a lil old school about the series- I played the original in the arcade and the first 2 NES offerings, which while they were so, SO awesome for the time, don't hold up very well today and don't really seem to fit into the continuity anyway. I also never finished the XBox one- probably got about halfway through before I gave it up, which was just dumb, but y'know how it is- sometimes you have to trade a game and stuff.
At the time, the XBox version of the game was one of the slickest, fastest, most oh-my-God-I-just-instantly-fell-in-love kind'a games out there. If you played it, you either loved it or hated it, but no matter what, you had to admit that it was pretty as hell and ran like a DREAM- smooth as silk and bloody, and made you feel like a complete badass as you walloped your way through hordes of ninjas, bad bad demony types, and bosses that just seemed to get bigger and more awe-inspiring as the game went.
They just took all of that and cranked it to 11.
If you have anything remotely resembling a good home theater system- I'm talking HDTV and even a half-decent sound system- THIS IS THE GAME YOU WANT.
(And yeah, there's a demo on Live, so grab that if you want.)
Granting that I just revamped our living room in a major way, mounting the TV to the wall, putting up bookshelves, "installing" a new home theater system (which currently has all the speakers just pointed at the couch, but that'll get fixed this weekend) and heavy curtains and blinds to keep out light, glare and outside noise, I can truly say that Ninja Gaiden 2 is just about the perfect game to test out a new home theater- even one that isn't even done. From the nearly crystal-clear HD graphics (though there are some jaggies on, say, Rachael's hair) to the thunderously wicked music and beyond exceptional sound effects blasting throughout the room courtesy of a Dolby 5.1 optical digital setup, I've gotta tell you guys- it doesn't get any better than this. I mean, yeah, the larger the system and whatnot, but I didn't even have the theater cranked and room reverberated with the clanging of swords, muffled kicks and just the damn game in general. And God- the occasions towards the beginning when I'd get grappled and stabbed with an exploding shuriken, the explosion sounded like exactly that: something fucking blowing up in my living room.
If you need one game to show off your home theater setup, this is it. And the great part is, it isn't just the little frilly stuff or the presentation- this game makes you feel like the biggest badass in the world.
Chuck Norris has NOTHING on Ryu Hayabusa.
Limbs and blood fly liberally and all over. Executions are slick and so well animated that it makes you wonder if they just motion captured some guy stabbing 8 kinds of hell out of some bums somewhere or something. You're typically fighting off 3-6 guys at a time (and occasionally more than that), and that's just the regular stuff- next thing you know you're facing bosses that just seem to get bigger and badder, and they AREN'T pushovers. Yeah, you can find a weakness or a pattern, but that doesn't mean you win- it means you have a CHANCE of winning, IF you can exploit it without getting your head sliced off and shoved up your ass.
Don't get me wrong; when I went to Target and saw that special this week with the games, I didn't even know Ninja Gaiden 2 had come out yet. I literally wasn't keeping any kind of tabs on it and had absolutely no interest in snagging it. But 10 minutes with the demo- and now over an hour running through the first two massive, gorgeous, badass levels- and the $60 I dropped on Ninja Gaiden 2 seems almost predestined, because NOW is when I finally got the living room together, NOW is when the HD setup is finally up on the wall and blasting through the living room, and NOW is when Ninja Gaiden 2 just happens to pop up and show me what next generation gaming is REALLY all about.
I'm not saying you need the best setup in the world to enjoy it, either. I'm sure it's phenomenal no matter what you play it on. But I AM saying that if you have a home theater and you DON'T have this game, you're missing out on the gaming equivalent of a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings HD movie marathon. Yes, it's just that damn good.
But Chupa, isn't there ANYTHING wrong with the game?
Well, yeah. Here's a quick list of what I've noticed so far, and I read a bit about some people with their complaints online, but I think they're being bitchy little bastards, so here's the skinny.
1. Each chapter opens with text. Given how excellent the in-game engine looks and how well they utilize it for the cutscenes, I could've done with a 5-minute flick here and there giving me the story instead of a one-paragraph exposition piece. And I wouldn't care, but the game is so immersive and each cutscene is just so awesome that limiting large chunks of info to text just seems a little out there- but it could be worse, I guess.
2. The afore-mentioned jaggies. You won't see them often or on much, but when one of the first things you see is Rachael's hair jagging up your HD picture, you tend to go, WTF??? But then you don't see any other jaggies through the rest of the game. Or at least the first two chapters. Only when she's around.
3. Slow down! No, that's not a command; occasionally when the game gets REALLY ambitious and tosses a shitload at you, the game slows down. But it's weird- it's not like the framerate slows down; it's like they locked the game so that instead of the framerate getting choppy, the game just slows down a tad. It's noticeable, and it's annoying at first, but it's almost a blessing when you're hacking your way through like 12 guys or whatever.
That's it. I've heard that there's some worse slowdown somewhere later in the game and a lot of people on forums elsewhere are acting like it's a gamebreaker, and I can't see how it could be with a game that's just this frickin' good, but some people just have to hate on stuff. I dunno.
So bottom line, if you like Ninja Gaiden, you'll like 2. If you like home theater showiness, you've LOVE 2. And if you just like being a badass ninja that likes taking other badass ninjas, demons, ninja-demons, demony ninjas and other assorted baddies apart into their component limbs, then this is most definitely the game for you- they just don't get much better than this!
/wall-o'-text
