Ninja Gaiden 2 Comments by Rob Fahey

Fact is, some of the complaints sound like they were lifted from the first one. Respawning rocket launchers?

And for those asking if it will come on the ps3? MS are exclusive shared publishers. They invested money into it's development.

The Bodybuilder Excuse me? Would you like help in expressing your confusion/lack of comprehension better?

It seems Teamxbox were told the framerate issues were resolved in the retail build.

Shockwave said:
we are holding off for a retail build of the game because the review build discs had some framerate/load time issues that we've been told have been resolved in the retail release. So we wanted to wait to post a review so we can verify this.

I'm surprised other sites posted their reviews already, more so by the ones that even pointed out the load time and framerate issues after we were specifically told about this and that it was something that's supposedly isolated to the review builds only, and NOT the final code.

disc, I have to admit I cannot tell whether you were sarcastic or not in your reply; you really got me there...

Disk haha not aimed at you that mate, I just beat them to it. :)

because we're all sitting about dying to chip in with that

See... See! ;)

'I wouldn't say it's harder - in fact, I'd say it's easier - but that's more than balanced by being more unfair in its design. I think that's a big step in the wrong direction.'

Fair enough, I can see what you're saying actually. Thanks for the clarification. I'm still going to buy it! :D

Hmmm, slightly disappointing... Probably still get it anyway. Ninja Gaiden made me happy...

Reviews are subjective. Whereas some people might think that it is annoying that a boss' death explosion can kill you if you are not prepared to block or have enough energy, I just say "MAN UP". :)

It's a shame that a game that I was looking forward to so much has been slightly sullied by this review. But then I'll try and remember that all these complaints of uneven difficulty, camera issues and other technical issues were raised as negatives in the first game. The only negative I thought had any merit was the removal of decapitations in the first game. Apart from that, one of my top three games on the original Xbox.

Bring it on.

OUCH!!

Thanks for the review Eurogamer. I cancelled my pre-order. I'm playing through the first game atm, and the camera and cheap bits already frustrate the hell out of me, so if they're worse and more common in this game, I don't want it.

YOU CAN ALWAYS TURN THE ALL CAPS OFF TOO MEM

"we had to drop our 360's display back to 1080i to get the game to run at an acceptable frame-rate, and this on a brand new 360"

Are new 360s supposed to run games better?

No - the comment was merely there to point out that this isn't a problem with a knackered old disc drive or anything like that. As it happens, the 360 I was playing the retail code on went RROD on me on Saturday, so I had to run out and buy a new one. Brand new 360, retail copy of the game - the framerate problems are still an issue.

@knoxundead : I belive Eurogamer claims that they have reviewed the retail game.

"...this on a brand new 360 running a boxed copy of the PAL release."

this game is a ten how dare you give it a seven its a twelve actually a twelve-point-seven you are wrong, my life is over! eurogamer suck

...thankyou for breaking the universe eurogamer, you suck!

I already played some Ninja Gaiden games "SIGMA for the Ps3" and something was alway's lacking, the art concept, production values, personality, responsive and intuitive gameplay etc... in my opinion Heavenly Sword and God of War are both superior in all thouse areas.

seamonsterneil is that your Madlax or Swam impression?

lol How could we forget the other one above! :D

Apolol sure they are... go and play them then and stay out of Ninja Gaiden threads, this is for the big boys!

I slogged my way through the first one, and kinda hoped the easy setting on the second would make it an enjoyable game. By the sound of all the cheap tactics the enemy have to snipe your health bar however, I'm going to give this pit of frustration a wide berth.

Kibbles?

"in my opinion Heavenly Sword"

Now i have heard it all. Heavenly Sword had really weak combat. Although IMO NGB > NGS.

Reviews are subjective. Whereas some people might think that it is annoying that a boss' death explosion can kill you if you are not prepared to block or have enough energy, I just say "MAN UP". :)

Ah, but if it were any other game (perhaps one that wasn't heralded for being a bastard to get through), would you still be saying the same thing?

From what Ive seen of GOW the gameplay isnt as good, with Ninja Gaiden almost everything you do feels like you were in control of, none of these QTEs/context sensitive button presses, give me oldschool manual hard graft because the reward feels much sweeter at the end of it.

it was a bit of a lot of things..heaqvenly sword didnt demand anything other than hammering the triangle/counter button for 95% of the game... you should go read the comments on teh ign review theyre a huge source of entertainment

i will be waiting for the demo though because i wasnt completely sold on the sigma demo (the only ng ive played)... and dmc4 kinda bored me, im completely put off by these extreme difficulties in games..maybe thats just something about getting older though

@ Calgon

You're excused.
If you think that MS in the last minute, whilst the game has been finalised, gold, pressed, mass produced, shipped globally, spent millions in marketing and launching the title, that they will just decide that they will just stop the delivery of the games, recall all of them back, kcik start development, then spend even more money developing the game whilst completely messing up thier entire plans, then you might be a bit naive.

So not as good as Sigma then, eh?

That would almost be good news for me as I'm considering buying a PS3 mostly for MGS4, but if Sigma will hold up as being the best NG game to date then that would be all the more reason to take the plunge.

Still, I would have wished for this to be better as the things they got right certainly do look impressive.

The Bodybuilder has it been shipped to stores then? Well a 9 or 10 out of 10 sells alot better than a 7 out of 10, was my reasoning, plus the time of year can play a part too into how well it sells(perhaps it is too late to do that though). Fact is alot of people have been waiting for this and will be sorely dissapointed with what seems like a lack of care and attention to the minor details, the original Xbox version earned a reputation for its polish(they managed to get an action game out there that looked better(technically), ran smoother and set a pace for the action that hadnt been seen or matched last gen in the same way) , its been slightly ruined now.

Am wondering whether presentation is still at the same atrocious level of Sigma (and Black and the original). The cut scenes were an embarrassment and there's little to like about the character designs.

But put this review next to that of GTA4. Both are hd upgrades of last gen games. Both share pretty much all of their predecessors' faults, while NG2 adds one. NG2 is rightly punished in the score for this, GTA4 is not. Makes you wonder...

i don't care! ... June the 6th can't come soon enough!

I know EG gave the same score to DMC4 which I really loved, but at the same time they were reviewed by different people (I can't help but wonder what Kristan would make of NG2 or Rob with DMC4), but also criticized for different reasons. DMC4 had a lot of repetition, poor level design, and backtracking combined with respawning enemies. The funny thing about that game was that it got a lot better as you replayed it on harder difficulty settings once you knew the lay of the land and had an expanded arsenal. All my initial problems with that game went away by my third playthrough.

NG2 however, sounds like it could in fact be the opposite where it'll be really impressive out of the bag, but the flaws would only become more apparent on harder difficulties. The respawning rocket launchers bring back all kinds of unpleasant thoughts of Lost Planet where you'd repeatedly get your ass handed to you for all the wrong reasons. But who knows, maybe with enough practice one can learn to circumvent the cheap aspects and it'll get better.

I missed the Apocalypse Knight..., man this dude Les just hates everything, and everyone.

"The world sux..., everything's bland and unoriginal, and I'm so awesome..., I'm buying yet another Joy Division LP (yes, because vynil rules and shit...)"

Its not my kind of game, but 7 out of 10 isnt that bad a score is it?

With regards to frame rate issues, there was a video (I think on IGN) that was some play video and that seems very choppy.... sometimes its difficult to know if they are capturing these things on some dodgy device or its really what you see is what you get.

Still looking for the answer to an JonFE's question earlier on - does it have framerate issues at 720p? The 360 was never designed to output at 1080p, and my TV can't display it anyway.

Huge fan of the original, but I think I'll pass.

Not enough time to struggle with a bad camera & poor game design.

Also, what's up with the graphics? Not exactly the quantum leap forward the original was.

@MrDurandPierre
"but if Sigma will hold up as being the best NG game to date then that would be all the more reason to take the plunge"

Sigma was a lousy lackluster port of the original. Ninja Gaiden Black was superior to Sigma in every way. And who actually thouth that NG2 could be better than Black. I didnt. I honestly hoped it would be closer than it seems to be from the reviews though.

I agree alot more with your last post btw Mr DurandPierre

Hm... didn't that NG2 creator guy say that Ninja Gaiden Sigma was crap a few days back?

Oh well, that won't stop me from playing it (I even bought Sigma, just for the HD graphics).
But still, cool hardcore gameplay aside, God of War is just SOO much better on the story and "coolness" front.

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_6534_en.html

here are some 720p 60 fps videos for you guys

Shit, that's bloody disappointing.. this has just gone from a must buy to a bargain bin pick up.

i am not buying this game, fact.

@asphaltcowboy

Ah, but if it were any other game (perhaps one that wasn't heralded for being a bastard to get through), would you still be saying the same thing?

I'll admit it. I am a Ninja Gaiden fanboy. After playing the first game and becoming quite proud of my NG skills, I find it hard to imagine that proper proficiency with the moves and weapons will still leave you feeling that this game is unfair. But then, I also thought that Dead or Alive 4 couldn't actually take 15 steps back in comparison with Dead or Alive 3. (Whoever thought that introducing a fourth reversal mechanic was a good idea is an idiot).

The proof is in the pudding. When I finally get to play it and feel that the review is 100%, I will personally send an email to Rob Fahey, apologising for my cheek.

Edit: I tidied up my Dead or Alive 4/Dead or Alive 3 comparison.

Wonga, go back to your hole and play Haze, for all our sakes. Your puerile crap is boring and ruining the nice thread.

why is the EG site done over in the theme of a mediocre game that EG don't even recommend

Would you really rather prefer it if the editorial content and the advertisements were somehow intertwined?

lol. floppy flop:)

Gametap gave it a 9/10 and fapped all over it

Pros: Excellent gameplay; nice variety in the later levels; great difficulty curve.

Cons: Story isn’t all that interesting; camera can get in the way; few framerate hiccups here and there. 9/10

"In a spanish web page (meristation.com) they reviewed the final build and they stated that there are NO frame rate issues at all. It got a 9/10"

7/10 from Gamesradar but the quality of their review was terrible. Nowhere near eurogamer.

One thing I disagree with in a ll the reviews in is the camera (assuming it the same as NGB). Its impossible to have a 3d game that follows the character like ng and not have these issue. If the camera was angled or fixed like GOW the game wouldnt have the same personal feel or accuracy IMHO. The game leaves it to you to centre the camera and not get in situation where you are boxed in (like a "real" ninja :] )

I'm not interested in crap balance. I'll hold of for a rebalanced version.

I have a feeling that Ninja gaiden fans like myself will enjoy this quite alot dispite of its faults if only for the memories from the best gaming hours of our lifes. People that never played Ninja gaiden will probably not enjoy NG2 as much.

Jesus, people, it's not getting BAD reviews.

Now stop acting like spoilt kids and either buy it or don't. If you liked NG then you'll like this one, if you didn't then it won't change your mind.

K'nowthnxbuhbye.

Well if the fans don't buy it up in significant quantities could this be the last in the series?

I could smell the disappointment from a mile away, it always looked like more of the same, which is partly a bad and partly a good thing. It seems, sadly, that Team Ninja decided to take out some of the good and leave in the bad like the camera. They also need to fix the art which is something Team Ninja have always had a problem with. I'm kind of annoyed at this review that it doesn't mention the sound design, and art in the game, as I think for a game like this those are important factors.