Reviews// Ninja Gaiden II

All that said, 'that camera' does relegate NGII from any possible claim to having advanced the hack'n'slash genre from where it should comfortably remain, nestling next to late 1970s 'power pop' and 1980s movies like Razor Back – loads of fun but essentially fluff which is given more cultural weight than it could possibly deserve.

As a side note - surprisingly, my brother's lawyer mates tend to be jealous of what I do for a living these days – so that's an advance.

Next, load times. You know what, I'm not going to moan too much about load times. I don't see the point in moaning too much about load times. It's like moaning a lot about the fact that real food takes longer to cook than microwaved-in-the-bag food does (nobody, but nobody is allowed to mention Smash, my personal favourite food). There are certainly lengthy load times in this game – I mean, some of them get close to two minutes.

However, if you're living at such an accelerated pace that you can't wait a little for a while before committing to another chunk of high-speed slash'n'hack set in more than acceptable graphical surroundings to tunes that would pass muster in one of those Superhero movies that you kids seems to love so much, then frankly you need to take some downers and stop drinking the coffee.

Wow! I'm being an apologist. I've just noticed that. I imagine that comes from the warm feelings of nostalgia evoked by Ninja Gaiden II. It is just so old skool. Unlike Heavenly Sword with its, shudder, interactive cutscenes and annoying wing-wang or twing-twang or whatever; with all its modernity and slickness, Ninja Gaiden II reeks of good, old fashioned game-play. It also has Itagaki's own notions of retro-cool.

I mean, sure when we're 14 or 48 the idea of shoulder length hair, dark glasses, cigarette drooping from fingers, cowboy boots, moody looks, and leather jackets are the epitome of cool. All of that has gone into Ninja Gaiden II. It really wants to live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse. However, like most 14 year olds it doesn't really want to put the effort into the last bit. And like most 48 year olds it knows it's got the mortgage to think about. Thefore it lacks the polish and detail of the modern skool.

But it surely makes up for that with the mindless zest, energy and sheer delight of the retro. Like watching League Two football is the football for real fans – all speed, mud in your face and guts without the finesse – playing and enjoying Ninja Gaiden II is for the hardcore gamer.

That's how I'm reviewing it anyway. Learn to deal.

SPOnG Score: 85%
Conclusion
Ninja Gaiden II comes in two flavours depending on your bias. It's either totally ruling all the noobz who don't get the fact that you've got to be harrrrrrrdcore to fully appreciate it (I call that the 'Masochistic Needs Therapy and a Testosterone Check' Camp') or its a pleasant throw back to a time when all that really mattered was hammering those buttons and having good old-fashioned fun. The camera does cause problems. The inescapable cutscenes are self-indulgent and contrary. But if you, like me, want your video games to be visceral, challenging and fun things to do in between trying to actually reach real life achievements (rather than thinking that the games themselves are real life achievements) then, I'd say “Play Ninja Gaiden II”.