I'm admittedly not a huge fan of Ninja Gaiden, and though I had played the original Xbox game when it first came out, after I played the Ninja Gaiden 2 demo I was in the mood for some ninja moves at less than a 60 dollar price tag. I looked around for a used copy of NGB, and it's a lot harder to find then I thought. I looked online, but there was no cheaper price to be found, so I downloaded my first "Xbox Originals" game. 5.93 Gigs later, I went back to taking on the Vigoor Empire.



Now I understand the game isn't very old, but considering the fare we have been treated to with the 360/PS3 visuals games from the last generation don't always take it easy on the eyes...Stuff like Gears, Bioshock, and MGS4 tend to spoil us. But NGB holds its own, even when compared to the big boys of the current class. It isn't in that league graphically, but it certainly looks like it could be a middle of the road game for this generation on the visual side. That is saying something when you consider that the new consoles blow the old ones away technologically.



The fast paced kill or be killed fury of steel has always been the thing to draw the player in. I think we forget how hard it is to make something so chaotic feel like an opera. I can't say I've played a current gen action game that does the action as well as this game.



Playing through the demo of NG2 you can see the quasi-cheapness to some stuff...Also playing a little more of it over my friends house, I can say I'm not a fan of the fucking rocket launcher dudes off screen that can wreck me. It took me a bit to get my timing down and remember some of the combos, but once I got rolling it was old hat, and I was busting out dead sexy kills, thoroughly decapitating motherfuckers, and enjoying the Boss fights. No cheap, only kick assery...Be it when you do it to the AI, or the computer AI does it to you.



Sure there are some iffy moments with the camera, but those moments are no where near how horrific the camera spazes out in DMC4. A "Triple A Next Gen" game is being shown up on almost every level that counts.

I know it isn't a stretch to say that NGB was a fantastic game, and still is. But from someone who wasn't in love with it, and for it to give me such a fantastic time now, for 15 bucks, it's a beautiful thing. I'm not a Ninja Gaiden lover, but once I'm able to get my hands dirty with the missions....It will be on, and for 15 dollars you can't beat it. The way I looked at it was that I could have spent the 800 pts on Aces of the Galaxy, and the 'It came from Uranus' "expantion to a very enjoyable top down shooter Rocketman, or pay the same amount for a game that can give me a ton more...Replay value and the bonus content...I couldn't help but choose this.