Ninja Gaiden 2: A Crusty Gamers Review
Before I get into this I'll start by saying that while I'm not a "fan boy" I do love this franchise and made sure it was on my "MUST HAVE" list. I'm also Xbox biased but that's only becaues Sony has yet to impress my with their operating software, online support and game library for the PS3. Given all that, I promise I will do my best to remain neutral and provide my honest opinion of the game. At age 40 and having played PC games since text adventures on a TRS80, and console gaming since a release week purchase of an Atari 2600 (Thanks Dad!!) I'm hoping my experience will temper my bias and provide a fair and objective review.
I'm going to write this as I play through it in hopes that it will convey the true game from a gamers view. My scoring will reflect my opinion of the game up to the current point of progress.
Right off the bat, I noticed that the graphics seemed a little "dated". The anti aliasing in the opening scenes was very 2002'ish and at times I felt that this was not much of a jump to a next gen platform. The character models in Masumura's shop were pretty good though and it seemed to clean up when after the first encounter with the spider ninjas.
Control during combat was quite good and if I were to have just finished playing the first game or Black, I think the switch to NG2 would be seamless except for now having to use the RB to open chests instead of the X button, which caused me some grief the first couple of times.
One thing about combat that I found frustrating was that I "lost" Ryu at times. Here I am thinking I'm going to town on a bad guy and I was actually following a spider ninja. I'm not sure if this was due to the wild camera swings but one cause was definately the camera being too close to the action. I would have much preferred if Team Ninja had given us the choice of 2 or 3 view angles rather than shoving us so close. Something along the lines of any current driving game.
While launching myself up the well shaft via the Flying Bird Flip, the game did something that amazed me. It lagged then froze. At this time in gaming NO SINGLE PLAYER GAME SHOULD STAGGER/LAG OR FREEZE... PERIOD. After an approximate 3 second freeze, I was able to continue up the shaft to the cherry blossom courtyard. I thought perhaps it was a first time load problem. You know what I mean, where sometimes the first time though an area, the machine needs to cache the content and it causes a slight hitch. I proceeded across the bridge and dispatched the baddies. And now my second major complaint. After heading down the stairs and taking on another group of foes, I encounted the "flaming arrow dudes". While NG and Black were hard, I never considered the game "cheap". The flaming arrow dudes, who stand on a walkway overlooking your path and fire projectiles that have a knock back/stun effect on Ryu cannot be killed and have fantastic aim, so they hit you quite often. So you think you'd simply run by them and head around the corner and be done with them. This is not the case. Not only do their bionic eyes assist in hitting you, they have bionic arms which allow them to hit you from an increadible distance.
And now the part where I grow really frustrated. As I rounded the corner, I'm presented with a group of spider ninjas swinging across a pit and heading my way. Normally, this isn't a big deal. I'm a baller with the Dragon Sword and dispatching these guys shouldn't be any problem. The game disagrees. Not only am I being hammered by the flaming arrow dudes from behind (with no lube I might add,) but now the game decides it wants to start lagging on me again and I experience a hitch that makes me miss the swing pole. I fall down to the next level and am joined by previously mentioned spider ninjas. The game is chugging along at about 3/4 speed. I'm reminded of Max Payne bullet time gaming. Except this isn't Max Payne and frankly I don't recall seeing bullet time anywhere in the game run down. I'm not a happy ninja. I was so amazed by this lagging that I actually quit the game and restarted from the last save point (just prior to shaft leading to the cherry blossom courtyard,) and to my utter disappointment the game froze again while flipping up the shaft. Granted, it wasn't for as long but it still happened. Additionally, the game also played at a reduced frame rate in the same area mentioned above.
After dispatching these guys I head back up, dodge what flaming projectiles I can and proceed. Another fight with mulitple spider ninjas and I win the Lunar Staff. During this fight, I again experience "losing" Ryu. Another frustrating aspect I'm starting to notice is that even though I'm holding the directional twards an enemy, if that enemy gets knocked out of my immediate range Ryu will no longer move twards that foe but will instead flop to the next closest enemy. This irritating feature only prolonged the fight as I could not stay on a single target unless i hopped after him and broke my routine. It also added to the "losing my ninja" aspect by sometimes flipping 180 degrees to a new enemy.
As of the time of this review I'm giving the game a 4.0. Sketchy graphics, FREEZING and LAGGING, poor control aspects and cheap enemies.
*UPDATE*
And I'm done! And honestly, it was a chore. The same problems I mentioned above i.e. less than expected graphics (Is that Ryu's arm or playdough?) laggy game play, cheap opponents, uninspiring areas still persisted. But, so did the action and that was enough to keep my playing to the finish. Unlike NG1 where I finished because I was involved and wanted to enjoy the game, NG2 made me simply want to end the torture.
At least I can download NGBlack while I run to the store to trade NG2.
Final Review Score: 7.0 Not a horrible game but you'll be better off renting it.