Games 6/4/08: Ninja Gaiden II
Ninja Gaiden II
For: Xbox 360
From: Team Ninja/Tecmo/Microsoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, suggestive themes)
Want to see the best of what pure action gaming has to offer in 2008? Play “Ninja Gaiden II,” and you will.
As a special bonus, if you act now, Team Ninja also will throw in the worst of what pure action gaming has to offer.
Let’s address the bad news straight away: The camera in “NG2″ is, occasionally, among the worst ever to grace a high-profile game in the 3D age. Though obedient far more often than not, it sometimes develops a mind of its own, and often at the worst time imaginable. There exist at least four boss encounters in which the camera will try, almost certainly with some success, to betray you. And it will drive you crazy.
Given that “NG2″ isn’t exactly a cakewalk to begin with, this is a potential deal-breaker for marginal gamers with low patience and no appetite for cheap death syndrome.
Fortunately, for so-so players who want in anyway, Team Ninja has offered some concessions not found in the punishingly difficult first game. Most prominent, along with a more forgiving default difficulty setting, is the new health bar, which recharges between encounters. Stay alive long enough to defeat a swarm of knife-wielding dogs, for instance, and your health will refresh before the demon gang arrives.
Elsewhere, “NG2″ mostly just expands on the principles that powered its predecessor. The game is prettier and (considerably) bloodier. Ryu’s arsenal of weapons, attacks and spells has expanded. Best of all, the completely inane storyline, while a total narrative failure, at least provides excuses to visit a surprisingly diverse array of locations that include an airship, a clock tower and Times Square.
That, in turn, allows “NG2″ to do what the series does best, which is give you the keys to one of the most capably dangerous characters ever maneuvered with a controller.
Team Ninja packs a ton of combat depth into very few buttons, and the game’s emphasis on defense as well as offense gives it a level of urgency that its genre contemporaries lack. Any single adversary can deal crippling damage if you get sloppy. When the camera is cooperating and the enemies are rushing at you by the half-dozen, “NG2″ can drop a jaw like few other games can.
Just be prepared to take the good with the bad. For every design decision that makes your eyes dance, there’s one around the corner that’ll send steam out your ears. That’s nothing new if you played “Gaiden,” but that doesn’t make it any less unwelcome the second time around.