Two of those is how.

It started off rocky
The first 30 seconds of my Xbox's operational life were as follows:
1. Insert Ninja Gaiden 2
2. Update notification
3. Update FAILED.

Then it froze at this 360 logo screen for a while and, risking it, I power cycled the thing and it booted up to the dashboard again. This time, NG2 decided to play. As I write this, I wonder if there's a way to force it to check game updates. I don't know what it missed or if it did it the second time and it worked, but the lack of a cryptic error code to toss into Google does not sit right with me. As a former PC support technician, having a string of numbers that only computers understand thrown at me is comforting. It can't give you a code unless it knows what's wrong, and if it knows, so does someone else. My PS3 at least does that. It's left me with a feeling of uncertainty and I really hope that goes away soon.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is...
Not great, but good. It's a little less twitchy than Sigma, but the camera is so bad that I kind of hope Itagaki loses his damn lawsuit. I'll let the unblockable attacks and lack of a lock on (to not have me swinging at everyone but the bomb crawling towards me) go. The game fights dirty and I knew what I was getting into. But the camera vibrating, stuck between the wall and an enemy, clipping into each of them and making it not just impossible to see, but headache inducing in a physical sense is completely unacceptable. I've noticed Ryu's feet clipping into things, invisible walls and really empty environments. The dialog is fucking terrible and everything looks like it was designed by Rob Liefeld. All in all, I'd say the game is 95% amateurish bullshit. If the combat wasn't fun, I would have sold it already.

For all the continues I've used, I never feel like I actually lost though. I've died when I got hit with unblockable attacks from off camera, when Ryu has decided he just wasn't in the mood to execute the crippled ninja crawling his way, when the camera got stuck in a wall. I've lost because the game fucked up. I think I've legitimately lost all of three fights so far.

I realize I said I ripped on the game, said I was having fun, then ripped on it some more, but I assure you I'm actually enjoying it. I'm just not enjoying all the parts of it.

Rob goddamn Liefled
That's what it is. Tomonobu Itagaki is the Japanese Liefeld. Everything needs to be X-TREEM and poorly proportioned. It really sank in just after I defeated the electrified subway train that looked like a combination of Magog and Seaman, the character Magog (Kingdom Come, DC) actually being a parody of Liefeld's character designs and writing. Don't misunderstand me, please. I may not like his work, but I have some respect for Rob Liefeld. He makes a living doing something I wish I could do and his style is a victim of the times. In his own words, "everything was being Mortal Kombat'd then". It doesn't change that he's not so great at anatomy, but I don't harbor ill will toward the guy. It's 2008, not 1992. What the hell is your excuse, Itagaki?

LIVE
I haven't set up my GT yet, only having one game that doesn't play online doesn't make it especially high priority. I'm probably going to leave it at a silver-level membership until I have a reason, and game, to play online. No offense intended, 360 owning robots (dtoid patrons, not... whatever) but I have enough trouble making the PS3 FNF, and I completely forgot about TFTuesday twice, so I've still logged 0 hours of TF2. I remain a noob. It's not that I don't want to play games with you, I just have a pretty full plate already, and it's getting cold.

I'm currently at a loss as to what it should be. I flipped through the automatically generated tags and had a chuckle, but I really don't feel like being "FrostyTexas" forever. My hilariously drunk friends, who decided to drop by (ugh, by the way) tried to help, but forgot that being drunk also meant they were idiots. While I waited for one of them to sober up enough to drive (I reiterate: idiots), I didn't get much thinking on that done. GT acquisition has been put on hold until I figure out what I want screechy voiced 14 year olds to be shouting racial epithets at.