Ahhh yes Ninja Gaiden. The manliest game series of them all bar none. So manly in fact that it would gave Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer and Mr. T nightmares. But then again if you expect anything less from a game that has the word "Ninja" in its title you need to be stabbed by a Shuriken. It had been a long time since we had seen a Ninja Gaiden game, then came along Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. It was acknowledged as one of the toughest games of its time by pretty much every one that played it. So it’s kinda understandable you wussed out and never tried it.
So here we sit reviewing Ninja Gaiden Black and you ask yourself what does this offer that makes it a better game than the original. It offers quite a lot. It offers quite a lot of new game play for one. For another the bosses and the enemies have been tweaked to make them more intelligent and challenging. Some more convenient save game points have been added to make things more hassle free. But more importantly than that it offers two new difficulty modes. The brand new Master Ninja mode that shows how completely worthless you are if you don’t have Jedi reflexes. And the new Ninja Dog mode that shows you that after a decade of playing games, after ten years of stiff wrists (probably not just because of games eh?), sore thumbs, after three and a half thousand days of playing everything from Flash games to FPS’s you are still incapable of finishing a game on normal difficulty. Ninja Dog makes the game almost do able for the casual gamer.
And how does it stack up in other departments? With Next gen. upon us in full cry the games visuals still manage to impress. The details on all the character is nothing short of astounding. There is no slowdown, rare tearing and all in all it looks gorgeous. The sound is again top notch, from the slashes of your sword to the music its all wonderfully pulled off. The game play itself could be tweaked further to make it better though. There are no checkpoints which means if you die you start from wherever you saved the last time, which can get really annoying at one or two points in the game. It could have used some more difficult puzzles. And there is quite a bit of backtracking involved. Especially in the last fifth of the game. But these are all nitpicks to be quite honest. The boss fights are a joy to behold. The common grunt enemies are varied and fun to fight, except for those damned ghost fishes. The game is sheer unadulterated fun for the fifteen odd hours it will last you.
Bottom-line. Go play it now. Wuss.
