Ninja Gaiden 2 Comments by Rob Fahey

In reply to:-

"Funny, in most threads the ps3 fanboys moan about 'xbots' yet here we are. Clinging onto one 7/10 to claim how this sucks, how fucking sad you are."

"Boy, no wonder the UK's pass rate for maths has gone down the shitter if 7/10 means ''bad'' to some people."

The trouble is, it's one of those reviews where the score says "It's worth a purchase" but the actual text of the review says "Stay away unless you enjoy being punched repeatedly in the testicles"...or something like that. That review really doesn't say 7/10 to me.

Where some ppl called it bias, I call it not beeing a moron, because to praise a platform just because the brand or the good times we had and we were kids, is a tad moronic.

And if my fellow PS-oldtimers fellows allow me to tip thee...: you can moan about MS beeing evil, the loudness, the RRoD that you never experienced (7 or 8 times!), but... not about the games. oh man, the games are freakin awesome!
yeah, that's right... bad ass and shit!

Another thing, I was under the impression that this game had a quite a few difficulty settings, so surely if I play it on Medium instead of Hard, (That's assuming the reviewer didn't have it on medium anyway) a few of these niggling problems wont occur so frequently when I'm playing it.
Sure the sucky camera's still there, but I honestly didn't find NG1's that bad, once I realised you're pretty much always needing to move it to an ideal position yourself.

That's assuming the reviewer didn't have it on medium anyway

Ha! You assume too much, good sir ;) The game has two difficulty modes available to you at the outset, Acolyte and Warrior - I played through on Acolyte to have some chance to see the whole game before writing the review, then started again on Warrior to give that a brief shot as well.

I'm back doing Acolyte again now - I think it'll be a while before I've skilled up to the point where I can take on the later levels on Warrior. The problem is, I'm not sure I want to. I've got the niggling knowledge in my mind that even when I get good enough to take on higher difficulty levels, it won't make any difference because I'll randomly die and have to restart anyway. That's not a good way to feel about the challenge in a game.

Randomly hard and unfair in places? Badly thought out save points?

That's a sale lost then as I would have bought this had the difficulty been at least sane, this sounds like a frustrate-a-thon.

"The trouble is, it's one of those reviews where the score says "It's worth a purchase" but the actual text of the review says "Stay away unless you enjoy being punched repeatedly in the testicles"...or something like that. That review really doesn't say 7/10 to me"

Erm, I don't think you read it properly. Didn't he describe it as the most balletic and exciting action game around? And then said it was marred by some questionable unfair difficulty spikes. If I remember rightly he said, it's awesome in parts but you'll have to put up with some frustrating stuff as well. I thought it was reading like an eight... I imagine the technical faults brought it down again to a 7...

/goes and checks article...

Yep that's pretty much exactly what he said:

"All of which is mainly depressing because Ninja Gaiden 2 is still a good game. It's beautiful, cinematic and full of fantastically detailed enemies, gorgeous animations and incredibly fast, exciting combat... It's marred by technical problems... There's too much trial-and-error gameplay, too many cheap shots, and not enough real challenge.

None of which is to say that you shouldn't go out and buy the most balletic, explosive combat game we've seen in years - especially if you were a fan of the last one."

He actually almost says exactly "It's worth a purchase" .

"The annoying thing I find about these games usually is that in cut scenes the character is fucking immortal and the best thing ever, yet as soon as you come across an average enemy in the actual game, he can barely do any moves from the cut scene and turns into a complete fag. DMC4 didn't do that and it was refreshing"

you are joking right? Nero was shooting bullets out the air doing loads of amazing moves you could never do in the game!

didn't bother me though as both game and cutscenes were great.

It's always a bit disapointing to see any negative comments about a game you are looking forward to, but then GTAIV is a 10/10 and suffers from severe checkpointing annoyance, unhelpful camera +random AI and severe difficulty spikes! Lets not get ahead of ourselves, it's still gonna be awesome.

"I guess it profited from a lack of competition on it's home platform. With DMC now on xbox as well it's clear that NG is just average as a game and utter shit when it comes to presentation.
"
The only DMC game to come close to the original Ninja Gaiden Black was the awesome DMC3, all other 3D fighters in the genre pale in comparison including the fantastic yet really only button mashing God of War games. I think someone above mentioned Heavenly Sword also, don't make me laugh despite the excellent production values the game was very weak in terms of length and combat mechanics.
I'm dissapointed to hear that Team Ninja have replaced the genuine difficulty that requires skill to pass of the original, and replaced it with cheap tactics. I'll still be getting it however, just not looking forward to it as much as I was.

@GingerNathan

Exactly.

Good thing eurogamer has lowered my expectations so my dissapointment of it not being as good as the first wont be too bad.

Good review Rob, but it would have been nice to see a few comments on the sound and story. I guess the story must be so shit it doesn't warrant a mention.

I think I'll be giving this one a miss for a while. Still have my hands full with DMC4 (which deserves a 9 btw EG!).

Good review Rob, but it would have been nice to see a few comments on the sound and story. I guess the story must be so shit it doesn't warrant a mention.

They're both pretty much exactly what you'd expect. The music is Team Ninja's usual fare of totally inoffensive soft rock stuff that you really don't even notice, since you're too busy focusing on the screams and squishy noises. As for the story, well.. Yeah, you're on the money there. It's absolutely abysmal, far worse even than NG1's storyline. It's used entirely as an excuse to drag you through a handful of major global locations, with wafer-thin plot to explain the transitions.

Thankfully it's the kind of game you don't really play for the story or dialogue. For the love of god, though, switch to Japanese audio before you start. I played the first chunk with the English voiceovers, and they cut my brain like knives.

@OllyJ
"you are joking right? Nero was shooting bullets out the air doing loads of amazing moves you could never do in the game!"

Yep, that was his point exactly.

"didn't bother me though as both game and cutscenes were great.

It's always a bit disapointing to see any negative comments about a game you are looking forward to, but then GTAIV is a 10/10 and suffers from severe checkpointing annoyance, unhelpful camera +random AI and severe difficulty spikes! Lets not get ahead of ourselves, it's still gonna be awesome."

That's true. If you think you'll like it; go for it! 7 isn't bad, just not fantastic.

Technically GTA didn't exactly wow me, great fun thought; in GTA IV the fact that other drivers try to drive around you if you ever get caught at the lights hacks me off more than it should; Hello? I'm in the outside lane here! I'm not parked! If one more person rams me or tries to overtake me at the lights I swear I'l*Crunch*

And that point, your honour, is when I put on the handbrake, got out and shot them all.

(That was when I thought the cops might give a crap about me running a red light, the cops were the ones who rammed me).

Anyway, enough rambling.

Les doesnt half talk some bollocks eh? He really is full of it, MS-hater(perhaps a bitter Sony fanboy) who feigns objectivity.

PS3 fanboys coming out of the woodwork to do a happy dance, to add insult to injury, fair enough if it was a game that hadnt earned its reputation and was being hyped(like Killzone2 or something) but not this one there were gamers genuinely looking forward to this being the definitive version.... should have gone out in style, what a waste.

"Edge slated the game in their preview and Eurogamer support some of their concerns. That's enough for me to know not to bother with it."

Rash, in my experience Edge and Eurogamer have slated some games that I absolutely love. Hell, Edge only gave Metroid Prime 3, one of the best games I've played this generation, 7/10. And educated and experienced opinion are one and the same, you cannot possibly know ultimately what your reaction to a game will be based on what others say. Now if your not that interested in the game really in the first place, fair enough, this game is only meant for it's audience anyway, but for those part of it, they shouldn't be put off by these reviews because lets face it, they practically lie. Ninja Gaiden Black's difficulty, perfect? Heck no, it was cheap as hell at times, but it just happened to nonetheless be the best you'll find, and I'm betting it'll be the same with NG2, especially as these reviewers are A. not playing the retail build, something that they could have mentioned, and B. they haven't got good enough at the game to beat normal yet. So no, I don't see what makes these reviews educated or trustworthy.

@sneetch

oh ok, I thought your point was the opposite, heh oh well eh!

Im really trying not to be too excited for this now that i know it doesnt live up to the original. Im still very excited and i dont know why. Maybe im just tired of GTAIV.

"And none of the DMC games comes even close to Ninja Gaiden Black"

Except DMC 3, whic is not only much better than any NG game mechanics-wise, but also has atmosphere, pacing and charm -- qualities no NG game to date has even come close to having.

especially as these reviewers are A. not playing the retail build, something that they could have mentioned

It's been pointed out repeated in this thread, as well as in the text of the review itself, that we've played a RETAIL, BOXED copy of the game, on a RETAIL Xbox. I don't know why TeamXbox only got a gold-disc copy and didn't subsequently get sent a retail version, but that's their problem, not ours.

I'm suprised to hear you say the music is not noteworthy from what I've heard it's a big step up from the Original.

Sound always gets overlooked anyway!
booo!!

another exclusive turns out bad. yay for multi platform games.

@drumbaby

"Except DMC 3, whic is not only much better than any NG game mechanics-wise, but also has atmosphere, pacing and charm -- qualities no NG game to date has even come close to having"

Your definently in the minority if you reallty think that.
Ninja gaiden Black
TeamXbox 9/20/2005 9.6 out of 10 96.0%
IGN 9/19/2005 9.4 out of 10 94.0%
GameSpot 9/20/2005 9.4 out of 10 94.0%
Official Xbox Magazine 11/1/2005 9 out of 10 90.0%
Game Informer 10/1/2005 9.5 out of 10 95.0%
Play Magazine 10/1/2005 9.5 out of 10 95.0%
GameZone 9/23/2005 9.6 out of 10 96.0%
GameSpy 9/26/2005 5 out of 5 100.0%
Worth Playing 10/14/2005 9.6 out of 10 96.0%
1UP 9/16/2005 10 out of 10 100.0%

DMC3 has an average of 84% enough said.

@Trigga_Tybalt

If 7/10 is bad, there arent many good games out there especially not for the PS3.

Yay for morons wasting each others time on the internets!
(Ive just wasted 30sec of my own!)

"DMC3 has an average of 84% enough said. "

What has that got to do with NG being soulless, lacking atmosphere, charm, and pacing, and not having as good combat mechanics as DMC 3?

Just because many reviewers imagined DMC 3 as having unfair difficulty (erm...easy mode anyone?) and forgave NG's shortcoming because of its shiny Xbox powered graphics...well, doesn't make it right you know :)

DMC 3 > NG...end of.

Halo as an average of 94%, nuff said...

oh but in that case, it's this and that, and the bias, and the shit...

I'm sorry Ace_McCloud but those issues do rather seem to outweigh it's good points no matter how 'balletic' it is. If the reviewer was trying to give the impression it was worth a purchase then maybe he shouldn't have made the difficulty issues and bad camera such huge down points.

On the other hand it has got me curious - It can't be that unfair!

Ninja Gaiden 2

Game Informer = 9.5 out of 10
IGN = 8.7 out of 10
VideoGamer = 9 out of 10
Eurogamer = 7 out of 10
Computer & Video Games UK = 8 out of 10
GameTap = 9 out of 10
GameDaily = 9 out of 10
Gameradar = 9 out of 10

Fast, bloody, violent, cool, hard (level adjustable), best action beat em up released!...that's what ALL reviews are saying!!!

its good to hear the TRUTH

thats the best news ive read all day!

It's 9/10.

I can tell you that without having played it ;D

I seriously can't wait, just to be playing a new NG game is exciting, I'm pretty sure if you had a month to review something rather than a few days it would be different, there's loads of games like Guitar hero that if I only had a few days to play it I may have criticised it unfairly when it actually becomes clear what it's all about after a long play time.

not saying the reviewr is wrong but I'll spend a month finishing it in a relaxed pace and not having a deadline hanging over my head.

STOP IT!! IT'S A ****ING NUMBER FFS!

Numbers are nonsense, you cant say with any accuracy one game is worth a higher number than the other. And scores are often bought anyhows.

The WORDS tell you if the game is any good.. ignore the fucking score would you please!!! Sheesh

"my dicks better than yours because it's got a higher score"

"DMC 3 > NG...end of."

In defence of NG... Despite the fact that both of these games are labeled as hack and slash, there is a certain difference in the way their combat systems work. DMC is in part about "long combos" and in part about "mass-combat" (the kind of combat in games like diablo gauntlet dynasty warriors etc.) In NG on the other hand, as Itagaki mentioned in some of his interviews, there aren't that many enemies attacking you at once, and they don't just wait for you to "use" them in chaining combos.

NG is much faster than DMC I mean compare the average amount of time taken between enemy X attacks you twice in DMC vs ninja gaiden. In DMC sometimes enemies won't attack even if it is completely obvious that they have the opportunity to do it. They'll just sort of dance around using some animation that is supposed to look threatening, and it will take ages before they actually attack. That's because they sit there for you to do some kind of combo. Compare that to NG's AI.

God of war is similar to DMC, either the enemies will attack slowly or if they're fast the amount of damage they do upon landing a hit will be small, and the game ends up kind of like playing diablo. It doesn't really matter if you get hit or not, since your moves are stronger, and eventually you will overpower your enemies by brute force. So DMC is like 75% about who's got the stronger moves that cover more area, and 25% skil and timing, while NG is the opposite. DMC is about pressing square rythmically and watching the attack animations, while NG plays like a fighting game, the fights have a much more complex flow.

I'm curious if NG2 has gone down the DMC route (sadly it looks like that by watching the videos) and also about the cheap sections
that most reviewers complained about. Personally I found that NG was an easy game once you've learned how to play it, I mean
got the feel of the right flow of attacks against each enemy. I got to the point where I can easily finish it on very hard (and I generally suck at games) *aside from that fight with alma*, which was cheap and badly programmed imo, and I'm worried if those negative comments about the difficulty mean that parts of the game are like that.

I have to agree though, that DMC does indeed have much more charm, NG sometimes feels like a world of retarded DOA wrestlers, with unimaginative architecture and directx-y graphics

@TRUTH

You conveniently left out of the 1up 75% review.

When it comes to reliable reviews I usually go for the holy trinity of EDGE, EG and 1up. I haven't read the EDGE review yet but I recall someone commenting that 'EDGE were right' earlier in the comment list so I'm going to assume it got a 7 there too.

Edge did give 10 to Halo 3. But it was the money, and the bias, and the phase of the moon. NG2 is the one to go (eventually).

"STOP IT!! IT'S A FUCKING NUMBER FFS!"

/fixed

Bumsticks! Loved the original felt it was hard but never cheap. Such a shame. Looks really full on all the time, in the original there was time to breathe between battles and generally only 3-5 enemies to contend with. This looks like a full on continual hack n slash.

Well only one way to know for sure.

smelly: STOP IT!! IT'S A ****ING NUMBER FFS!

Numbers are nonsense, you cant say with any accuracy one game is worth a higher number than the other.

haha, yeah no-one should ever get hung up on a simple review score right smelly? i mean, imagine still going on about a review score months after, still unable to get over it - would be a bit sad right?

sounds to me like rob sucks at ninja gaiden. i'm partly saying this because if ninja gaiden has become cheap (something it never was) then action games have begun their descent into hell. oh well, god of war 3 better be awesome.

Didnt Gamesradar give this 7/10 too?

Looking at the average score it got 8/9 out of 10 with a couple of 7/10 inc EG!... If you want a bloody, gory, fast action violent game that needs skill - the get it. Some complain about the camera - This can be corrected by pressing the L button, which centers the camera behind Ryu - problem solved. Also some complain about the difficulty - Just put the level down, if your not a experienced NG player. It's probably right now the best action game that requires skill on t any platform.

Game Informer = 9.5 out of 10
IGN = 8.7 out of 10
VideoGamer = 9 out of 10
Eurogamer = 7 out of 10
Computer & Video Games UK = 8 out of 10
GameTap = 9 out of 10
GameDaily = 9 out of 10
Gameradar = 7 out of 10
Console Domain = 8 out of 10
PlanetGames = 9 out of 10

Ouch, harsh review :(

i was looking forward to this one. May have to check out a rental first...

I wasn't a huge fan of the original game, but after playing the demo, I'm definitely going to go out and buy this as soon as possible. Although it only gives you one level, it makes a lot of little improvements, that I felt the original sorely needed, and most of the complaints being thrown at NG2, are all issues the first game had as well, but were for some reason ignored.

I'd also like to point out, that unlike Ninja dog mode, the new lower difficulty setting is very easy, the spider ninja's can be beating on your for minutes at a time, before you'll even come close to dying. It should be a great help for beginers that can't get used to the difficulty.

Also, the claws are a lot of fun for tearing through the enemies :)

demo? where? i want to play it now!

I thought it was out on the PS3 too?

I will have to buy it because I loved the first one. A shame about the camera... It was completely unbearable in the first one.
What are they thinking??

I played it a couple of hours last night (retail version), and its very similar to the first (thank god). If you loved the first you will love this without question. 9/10 so far imo. The first was a solid 10/10 but its graphics was the best ever in the last generation. The same cant be said about NG2 but its more of the same and thats more than enough for me.

I'm just finishing up the Third Chapter, I'd agree with the guy above, if you loved the first one you'll feel the same about this one. It's a shame the dire camera remains, as when it does work, it's all running silky smooth, and you're fooking obliterating 10 guys in as many seconds, it's just pure sex on screen, but then you'll have the odd section where you quickly get your ass kicked just because you can't see what the EFF is going on.
Thankfully it doesn't happen enough to infuriate me too much, so it's a definte 8.5/10 experience so far, the only real downer is that it's all sooo similar to the first (so far anyway).

Got the retail game. Currently playing in acolyte mode (easy). I think it's different from the original game. The entire game seems a bit faster than the original, making things more hectic. The camera is pretty bad although the trigger helps. Also the graphics are a bit dissapointing when compared to DMC4 for example. The archers are a royal pain in the butt as stated in the review.

Butbutbut, the game has moments of pure battle bliss. 7 out of 10 is spot on.

Its good, when it's good... no frame rate issues for me yet.

I just wish your health refilled before boss battles, it a little cheap on the first play through getting to a boss with like no health and then have the game restart u before the fight, with the same health... that really doesnt reflect sensible skill tbh... complete this boss without taking ANY damage! Yay, fun.... 7/10 is right

As a fanatic of the first game, this is a fair score.

bought it

its shit

harsh, butthe game just feels hollow, ryu feels too light, the camera and viewpoint are tragically flawed, i felt i was playing it for the sake of playing it. No enjoyment whatsoever

"I just wish your health refilled before boss battles, it a little cheap on the first play through getting to a boss with like no health and then have the game restart u before the fight, with the same health."

WIMP!!!!