Ninja Gaiden II (2008)

Ninja Gaiden games are not for those with weak constitutions - they weren't 20 years ago, and they most certainly aren't now. Much like Metroid, this series made the jump from 2D successfully in the previous console generation, instantly entrenching its place amongst the most hardcore of action games. Four years, two expansions, a remake, and a port later, Team Ninja finally released a true sequel.

Like its predecessor, Ninja Gaiden II is a punishing game. However, although the difficulty is quite high, almost frustratingly so for newcomers, it is achieved in a totally legitimate fashion, unlike the great majority of games today. Every enemy in the game down to the most common foot soldier is totally capable of handing your ass to you; not through artificial mechanisms like rubber-banding or skewed damage/health levels, but by actually being competently programmed. Your foes will capitalize on blind spots, gang up on you, attack from afar, grab when you block - they will do anything in their power to take you down. Did you forget about that ninja who's crawling around on what remains of their limbs? Well, he'll latch on if he gets close, exploding shuriken in his mouth, a suicidal kamikaze bent on taking down that extra bit of your health. Prepare to be overwhelmed, humiliated, and brutally defeated at every step of the way. But just like before, it's totally worth it. There is a way out of every situation, and if you put the effort into understanding this, the game will be yours to control. The hardest teachers are always the ones that impart the best knowledge, and nothing shows this better than how easy killing earlier enemies becomes as you progress. The fighting controls in Ninja Gaiden II are a slightly finessed and tweaked, yet familiar style for anyone who played the first game. Combos have become more powerful and useful, which means that the player is no longer dependent on Flying Swallow spamming in tough situations. The extra weapons have likewise become more viable, with only slight differences in usefulness, allowing players to successfully fight with whichever ones they prefer. Fighting is smooth and satisfying, now with 500% more gore through the addition of severable limbs and quick executions. You just can't beat watching Ryu cut off the last leg off a ninja with the Dragon Sword, then decapitate him viciously as he stands, propped upright on rigid stumps. It feels fantastic, and looks just as good. Another new aspect is a more lenient health system, featuring light damage that is regenerated when enemies aren't present, accumulated serious damage that needs to be healed with specific items, and save points that completely fill you up the first time you save at them. Gone are the days of redoing sections over and over to make it through with the least damage in order to conserve healing items, replaced with a much more friendly system that helps keep the game moving.

Visuals, presentation, and the settings have all been improved, too. Of course, Ninja Gaiden II is shiny and modern, well removed from the early oXbox days, but the art direction is far more interesting. Whether I was running through the early skyscraper-laden neoTokyo rooftops or fighting in a werewolf gladiator battle, there were so many memorable moments in the game that really stuck out and stayed with me. I don't want to give many details, because it's best that you experience them first-hand, but I was far more entertained with the world presented here than I've been in a long time. Combine that with some of the most legitimately badass cut-scenes and fights (even normal ones) around, and you'll start to see what a gem Ninja Gaiden II is. The story is completely inconsequential, but it's a fun little take on divine creation and common folklore (Elizebeth Bathory and a rather Rasputin-esque character figure prominently), and I certainly appreciated that they at least made a unique tale that matched the outlandish nature of the game. The female companion for Ryu is rather laughable, however. She quickly goes from ginormous-titted, gun-wielding CIA operative to damsel in distress status relegated to saying, "Oh, Ryu." Actually, I have a sort of admiration for Itagaki's so over-the-top approach on her that it becomes nigh-on parody of female characters in games. I highly doubt he meant it that way, but I still applaud his frankly blatant fanservice.

Of course, all is not honey and cinnamon here. The biggest offender lies in the horrendous camera that is inexplicably unchanged from the first game. Although it's mostly noticeable in the earlier parts of the game and on certain boss fights, there's really no way around it - the camera sucks in just about every way a camera can in the 3D, action-oriented setting. However, the more you play, the less you'll notice it as you stop expecting the game to play nice and start anticipating the attacks from around blind corners. It's really not a huge deal once you get into things, but it's really jarring at first. In addition to that, the bosses can be rather hit-or-miss. While the common enemies are always a joy to fight (even the annoying ones like the blade-wielding zombie dogs or explosive shuriken-spamming spider ninjas), the bosses vary from extremely easy to beat, seemingly insurmountable until you understand them, or merely trite and annoying. This is most obvious at the end of the game, when you fight a projectile-heavy wanker full of unavoidable attacks right before going on to the mandatory bow shenanigans of the final boss. I really didn't mind any of the parts too much until I got to that, but it's a bit of a drag to end the game so poorly.

In the end, you should know if this sort of game is worth your time. If you're really itching to throw yourself into it and aren't afraid of coming out sore and bruised, then I really can't recommend this enough. If you're not huge into highly challenging games or the action-oriented hack and slash gameplay, you should definitely rent or demo this beforehand. I got fairly far into the first Ninja Gaiden before losing interest, but this one kept me riveted the entire time. Ninja Gaiden II isn't perfect by any means, but it's still a masterpiece. Now that Itagaki is free of Tecmo, I expect him to produce something flawless, but that is to be seen with the future, and for now we can fill the time with more demonic blunt force castrations.

Verdict: Win [4/5]

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/splash/n/ninjagaiden2/default.htm

Prince of Persia (PC, 2008)

The newest entry to the revived Prince of Persia franchise continues the adventures of our intrepid Prince. This time he’s walking in a desert, looking for his lost donkey, and gets swept into preventing an ancient god of evil trying to escape from his prison.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the Prince of Persia games follow the Prince, a veritable master of swordplay, acrobatics and parkour, and an uncanny knack for disturbing gods, demons and messing up the timeline. The games consist mostly of puzzles, 3d-platforming and adventuring, relying on fairy-tale Arabia for the flavor of the story and the surroundings.

Like always, the series tries to re-invent itself in each of its iterations. There are some welcome additions, and some … less welcome. The game itself is very pretty. I mean it when I say pretty. This game is bloody gorgeous. The graphics have been cell-shaded, and combined with a bit of Final Fantasy-esque graphic design this leads to a result that could be straight out of a painting in a story-book. Not to mention very pretty. However, in my personal opinion, they may have gone a bit too far in the design department, when coming up with the designs for many of the buildings in the game. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good, but at least in the previous games the impossibly tall towers were usually based on a cliff or some relatively stable platform. This time, many of them are basically perched on top of stone matchsticks, couple hundred meters long. This is not a massive problem, as I didn’t exactly go into the game expecting superb realism and grittiness with brown and grey textures. In fact, POP takes exactly the opposite course, and this is refreshing. However, part of the charm of the previous games was that the Prince was a relatively normal(at least compared to all the others he met in the games) bloke, trying to survive in world-ending situations. He could do crazy acrobatics, but he was still relatively gravity-bound. This time any pretension of adhering to the laws of physics has been chucked out of the window. This leads to very pretty combos in combat, and makes scaling the impossible routes in the game possible. However, it’s just not as satisfying to scale insane obstacle courses with a guy who defies gravity, than it is to do the same with a very skilled, if fragile acrobat.

One major change in the game is the automation of the time-rewinding tactic present in the previous titles. It’s basically no longer possible to die, as Elika, your companion in the game, pulls your arse out of the fire the moment you would actually die. This helps with those people who aren’t very good at games, and removes much of the frustration of saving and loading present in many games. Still, the game as a whole is relatively easy, and at times it feels like it’s railroading the player. The possible routes to move around the environment are marked in various ways, be it scratches or vines, not to mention pressing a button shows you the way to the next chosen area. This takes much of the free-form puzzle platforming of the previous titles away, and feels less satisfying than finding your own way. It’s still bloody good fun to see the Prince run around the walls and whatnot. This same problem occurs in the combat. Instead of the free-form-use-the-environment-and-whatever-you-want combat of the previous titles, the Prince is now reduced to blocking and shuffling around, until you can pull off a pretty combo to damage your enemy. One issue I had with the combat was the prevalence of quick time events, at which I’m pretty terrible. Nothing is quite as annoying as spending a minute or two grinding down your enemy’s health, just to fail a quick time event and Elika saving you, just to see the enemy’s health bar recharge due to this.

The game has taken a step from being fully linear, to presenting you all the levels in the game, to do in whichever order you choose. This however, leads to many levels being very similar, and loses some of the charm of discovering new and radically different places. The story isn’t terribly complex, but it never was in the previous games either. The dialogue between Elika and the Prince is sometimes funny, sometimes cringe-inducing in all its wittiness, but nevertheless I did warm up to the characters over the course of the game. The meat of the game is in the platforming, as always. It’s just too bad that while it’s been expanded, the aspect of finding your own way has been neutered along the way.

Overall, the new Prince of Persia is a worthy addition to the series, and great fun to play. It’s just not as good in some aspects as its predecessors. It’s still very pretty.

Verdict: Win

http://prince-of-persia.us.ubi.com/index.php