Well, nothing of any huge importance has happened….except….I BOUGHT NINJA GAIDEN!
*cough*
It’s an awesome game, it really is. It’s really fast paced, and you really only stop when you die, which I only do on bosses. It’s a really hard game to play, because you’re quickly forced to use ALL the controls before you even fight the second boss. Basically, there’s a bunch of different ways to attack. Single pressing-wise, you’ve got one normal attack button, and one ‘essence’ or strong attack button. You also have a button for an auto-aimed ranged attack, and a buton for jumping a button for camera control (two, actually) and one for blocking. It seems really simple, no? But you have to utilize all of them simultaneously, because you’re usually fighting groups of three guys. One thing they mastered really well is having fun just KILLING people. There’s so many ways to do it! If I actually knew how to do it, there’s a way to kill 3 guys at once, and they all die simultaneously, it’s really cool. The ranged attacks are a bit weird to use, though. With the shuriken you don’t have to stop to throw them, but they do like no damage, and the only real purpose is to stop a guy for 1 second, which helps. At the moment, the only other ranged weapon I have is the bow. Problem is, you have to stop and shoot, and it really makes it useless for real combat.
Another thing they did well was the wall effects. In a lot of other games (JK2, JKA, Splinter Cell), tricks off walls were really pretty useless, and you only used them once or twice in the game. But not here. Walls are an invaluable tool for dodging and getting around. It’s just awesome to run into a room, jump off a wall, jump on a guy, land behind him, and own the noob. The game is a lot harder than that though. The bosses are all REALLY hard, and money isn’t a plentiful source for getting potions. At the moment, I’m only on the fourth stage because the first two days I had it, I was stuck on one boss.
As for the bad parts: it’s kinda linear. You basically go into a room, kill people, and go into the next, with maybe some side rooms with more dudes or items or something like that. There’s not a lot of options for where you can go. Another thing is the possibility of not actually being able to prevent your own death. Most games have a thing where for about .2 seconds, you can’t be hit after being attacked. Not this. Ninja Gaiden is completely real-time, and while this makes for an awesome but hard fighting experience, it can be kind of lame. If I just get knocked into the air by an explosion, all my enemies have free reign on me till I roll back up. The blocking mechanism is good, but it only covers, maybe a 100-120 degree range, so if you roll the wrong way, and happen to face the wrong way, there’s not a thing you can do.
Whoops. I accidentally wrote a little game review there. Hehe. 😀
Anyways, that’s been a lot of fun. My dad brought the TV back, so I was playing in my room last night, not upstairs in the den. Tonight comes the ski-o-ree, which should be interesting, considering theres no snow outside. Hopefully it will be good.