Ninja Gaiden on the original XBox is a masterpiece. The game is just perfect in every way. People complain about the camera…yet, it’s the best camera I’ve experienced in a 3rd person action game. A quick squeeze of the ‘R’ trigger resets the camera behind you. How can you get it any easier than that? So, Ninja Gaiden 2 came out earlier this month and I was pumped. I’ve been playing through it little by little, and no not because of time, but because it’s boring. Let me break it down to you.

I’ve mastered the original, so of course, starting out in this one may be a little simple (Warrior mode). But, I seem to have a lot of health all the time. …And the fights are boring. NGII is just too easy. Now, I’ve come across a few pain-in-the-ass bosses, but all in all, this is easy. Unfortunately it’s so easy that I don’t play it often. It bores me. But, that doesn’t stop it from being a badass action game. I think I would enjoy it more If I hadn’t played the original. And you can’t really fault Team Ninja. They got shit for making their last game difficult. It’s too bad that nowadays the gaming community is made up of a bunch of pansies (didn’t I make a post about this?). And you’ve probably heard by now, but Itagaki left Tecmo over some legal issues and has apparently brought over some of his people from Team Ninja to start a new development team (MS, snag ‘em up). Maybe Tecmo pressured Team Ninja into making NGII into a different game than they wanted - easily accessible by anyone? Who really knows for sure, but hopefully we’ll be hearing from Itagaki soon.

Anyway, I don’t dislike NGII. I just don’t see myself putting much time into it because it is slightly boring. I’m not stopping you from playing it though - you really should.

I beat Conan right before the release of NGII. That was a very fun game, and the last boss was just downright insane. Any gamer should probably go through that game just to play against the last boss. There was no mercy. It took time to figure out what to do…and some of it was just patience and timing. The other portions though…It had to be luck.

In a day or two (or maybe a week), I’ll be writing about the new gaming laptop I got. The Gateway P-6860FX.

I stopped playing GTA IV. I’m sure you understand how I feel from my previous post, so we’ll leave it there. What I was playing instead, is Viking: Battle for Asgard. This game is a lot of fun. It has great combat controls and some intense mega-battles. Like Dynasty Warriors and Ninety-Nine Nights. It’s a game with obvious flaws, yet completely satisfying. Totally worth playing. I actually got it through Gamefly. A rental service I just started using, first with Dark Sector. Here’s a plug:

Now I’m working on Conan and it is a great 3rd person combat game. What I really like about it is the way the combo system works. As your attacks land you then press the next button in the combo. Instead of dial-a-combo it works as combos should. I’m about to finish it, and need to for Ninja Gaiden 2 on Tuesday…

I like how the reviews for NG2 have been so far. People brutalize it for the camera, which confuses me because I think it’s one of the greatest 3rd person action game cameras. Especially with help from the Right Trigger. But most of it falls into my reviewer rant: This time, the game is just so frustrating that it is easy for the reviewer to bash its camera.