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> Ninja Gaiden: Written
by: Stephan Roche
 Publisher: Tecmo Price: 49.99 Genre: Action M for Mature
Ever since I heard Ninja Gaiden was coming for the Xbox, I went crazy. I mean
think about it, finally a game to suit all of your ninja needs. No more need to dress up like a ninja on Halloween, or buy
plastic swords and start hitting your neighbors dog with it. I’m sure you all know Team Ninja, after all they’re
the makers of the Dead or Alive series. Well these kind folks have come up with such a great action game, that you’ll
be kissing their feet till no end.
The game’s story is your normal
vengeance tale. It has a few twists but overall, it’s pretty predictable. It does get the job done nonetheless. What
made this game so good in the first play-through was the combat. The enemies are smart and actually attack you instead of
waiting for you to attack them. They react fast to your attacks; they block when necessary and when you let your guard down
they attack fiercely at you. You have a large arsenal of combos and weapons. The weapons are divided in two different categories.
In the first category we have swords, war hammers, giant swords etc. In the second category we have shurikens, bow and arrow,
exploding shurikens etcetera. Boss fights are just plain fun but require some mad skills. The camera sometimes may get a little
irritating however, particularly in boss fights, which does tend to cause a cheap death or two.
The in game graphics are beautiful and the amount of detail put into making them is stunning. The cut-scenes
are first-rate as well. The frame rate also runs impressively fine. There’s a slowdown here and there, but this doesn’t
detract the experience. The level design is actually pretty good, however sometimes you can find your occasional bland background.
The sound mostly registers as the weakest part of the game. The background music is solid, but nothing
impressive. The sound effects are awesome on the other hand. The thing that really hurts the sound is the voice acting. The
thing that really hurts the sound the most is the terrible voice acting.
The game controls are very well done. The game features easy pick-up-and-play controls to make the
combat feel even better. However the camera button will occasionally get stuck, which is very irritating.
First of all, once you finish the game, you will come back for the sheer fun of it, to get a higher
score or to challenge yourself on a higher level of difficulty. Another reason is to unlock the classic Ninja Gaiden games.
The length of all games contain 15+ hours of replay value altogether. Simply put, this game will last you a long time.
This game is rated M for blood, gore and violence. I consider it was rated fairly accurate, considering
that you can chop heads etcetera. There’s an excessively large amount of blood, and when you kill the enemies, they
turn in to puddles of dissolving blood.
This game is an immediate must-buy, despite the small flaws (i.e. bad camera). Everything else is just
to good to pass. Even if you’re not a fan of action games, I highly recommend it.
Graphics: 10 | Sound: 9.0 | Control: 9.0
| Replay: 10 | Overall Game Score: 9.5/10
                   
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