Ninja Gaiden Comments by Tom Bramwell

Are you Rankin from the SA forums?

Yup, that's me. I thought I recognized your name ;)

Yup, that's me. I thought I recognized your name ;)

This is the only place I'm not a monkey made of polygons.

There is one mirror in the game that reflects your character, inpHilltr8r :-)

...and there's a thousand mirrored floors where you can clearly see the environment, but nothing else. It's not even remotely serious, but it kinda breaks the illusion, for me anyway. Especially having just come from playing Onimusha 3, which does the floor reflection thing quite well.

Oh, and a quick tip for using arrows.

If you tap the Y button, he auto-aims and shoots an arrow. If you hold Y down, and move the right stick, you go into 1st person shooting. The auto aim is all you need for level 2, if you're going into 1st person, you're just opening yourself up for a world of pain.

This is the only place I'm not a monkey made of polygons.

;)

Back on the topic in hand. I'm going to wait a while for this, even though it looks so good. I've just purchased a live account along with Rainbow Six 3 so my gaming budget is shot for a couple of weeks :(

10.

Fantastic. Just picked it up yesterday. This thing grows on you. You go through the first couple of levels thinking - Yeah these graphics are decent (not quite doa3), and that the fighting is pretty cool but also a little shallow. - But very slowly you start suspecting that the fighting might be a little deeper than you thought, and that you're gonna have to start experimenting to make it through this adventure alive... and then 2 A.M. comes around and you just made it passed that bitch of a boss to get onto the airship.. and Holy shit man. This game is unfucking believable. The sharpness and detail of the cabin rooms and hallways, with pixel shaders reigning supreme, just makes me wonder in awe. How the fuck do these guys do this when everybody else is throwing out a polygonal pixelated mess (relative to NG)? It blows my mind. Even more than the original DOA3 did. I mean these are huge levels not small fighting arenas.
This thing is the full package, if you like action video games and you have the spare cash, you would might as well be kicking yourself in the nuts if you didn't go pick this thing up as soon as possible.
Word of advice - Play it with your friends. Pass the controller around. There's no better way to play it (or most other games really).

This game has sent Xbox sales in Japan crazy 10,575 in one week and the game sold over 38,000 units on day one. If Microsoft want to break Japan with the Xbox2, then I suggest, give the console a Japanese name and only sell games developed by Japanese software house's in Japan. I'm singing the praises for the Xbox when the credit and congratulations should go to Team Ninja and Tecmo. I think DOA Girls Wet T-shirt Street Soccer, would move thousands of Xbox's in Japan, go for it Bill.

I think you've made your point.

Thanks for that.

I'll wager he's a disgruntled Sony fan ;)

I don't think it has any actually.
Not sure about the US version though.

While I'm here

Is it pronounced "Gay-den" or "Guy-den". Or neither?

It's Guy-den but I think Gay-den sounds better and everyone seems to use it anyway.

Yeah, I was asking around and I was told Gay-den.

I'll stick with that I think.

Ninja Gaiden is short and easy. People that play Ninja Gaiden and say it is hard don't play games enough. Further more to call it hardcore is laughable.
I completed this game in three days worth of gaming. That's not all day and all night. And not really trying.
From what I've heard people just haven't yet realised it is a good idea to save health potions in a game like this for when thay have to fight a boss. Come on it's simple isn't it.
Then I find that I have picked up every golden scarab. The game rewards me with what?!? A standard theatre mode, a harder difficulty level and other stuff hardly worth referancing.
I started again on a continuation mode to find out I get none of the stuff I rightfully earned carried over except useless golden scarabs that I can trade for some equally usless armbands. EVEN DEVIL MAY CRY LET ME KEEP MY STUFF. On top of that the continue mode is only for the same difficulty.
Why should I complete this game again? Which I could easily do. There is no payoff. WHAT THE HELL! NO LEVEL SELECT EITHER?!? And what happened to my karma stats on each level? What has this game got that Devil May Cry 2 doesn't? Just some graphics. I see no reason why games like Splinter Cell and Ninja Gaiden get a ton of praise for slight graphical flare when you get only 20 hours or so of play. It could take you months to get S rank on all the levels of DMC2. I could try to get a Ninja master on NG, but why when I have to start at the beginning of the game without weapons or moves. That isn't difficulty thats lazy, stupid or ignorant programmers.
I think that Splinter Cell is cooler and more stylish than mgs2 though others would disagree, but it has MUCH more content. With susbstance added it is huge and deconstructs simple gameplay elements to test and challenge.

Devil May Cry 2 has plenty of characters and mission select and a good continuation mode. It also has proper rankings for each difficulty and takes into account the weapons you earn after completing the game.

I think that these days a gamer is just trying to get his rocks off as quick as possible to a short but cool game, rather than a long game that will stay on your shelf as long as you have an Xbox.

To finish this long rant with something that will make you think.

Halo is a good game. However it is not the greatest game of all time, people should realise that. Why isn't a game of Halo's undoubted quality coming out every month. We are just flooded with poor sequals. Unlike mgs2 that is undoubtably a leap from mgs1. And don't get me started on movie games. The fact that reviewers have the balls to say that some movie tie in games are good. It just warps my mind. This however does not count KOTOR as it is based on a whole fictional universe that started as a movie and not just a movie.

If you've read this you've probably got a longer attention span than that of the casual gamer. Or 'Splinter Cell lover'.

THE END.

just started playing it in work and its great. Got a very steep learning curve but once you get used to the brutal combat and obtrusive health potion usage system, its a really enjoyable game.....in the' r-type frustrating/addictive' sort of mould

"If you've read this you've probably got a longer attention span than that of the casual gamer."

No doubt. ;)

I liked NG, but started to find it a little bit tedious some 10 levels in...

i just wanna tell you guys about the shitty things in this game.

the combat system is truly the greatest ever made. it makes fighting enemies fun, unlike in any other game. they've made bad choises enemie-wise though. the enemies are mostly monsters, while fighting ninja's is much cooler gameplay-wise. the enemies often use long-range attacks, while with this combat-system it's much cooler to just beat the guys up from a short distance.

it could have been the best game ever, if the action was implemented better, and if it focussed more on the action in stead of adventure elements. it makes the game much slower. i like adventure games, but they should have left it out in this one. or at least made it different.

Also, the levels in this game don't look all that great. it's beautiful programming, but they just don't look very cool. when i'm playing this game, i often think: 'why did they put so much effort in making these objects or views look so good, when you hardly see them or look special. it's the same with the cut-scenes. they have the best graphics, better then those final fantasy cut-scenes, but half of the time what they're actually showing is boring stuff.

this is a great game with some flaws. it's otogi turned around: so the fighting is just f**kin great with some flaws though, but the levels don't look very special.

oh and the game is very long. it's real value for money