Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360)

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You can take your pick of bone slicing weapons

Enemies in Ninja Gaiden 2 come thick and fast and in large groups. You'll face warriors, giant lizard monsters, dogs, frenzied bats, gargoyles, metallic scorpion-like spinning nasties, werewolves, flying piranhas and more - in fact, that lot are just from the game's opening third. Your health bar in Ninja Gaiden 2 uses a replenishment system, meaning you don't need to use elixirs to get your energy back. When you beat a wave of enemies your health is re-filled, but any sustained damage (shown by red in your bar) is permanent unless you use a health elixir or blue essence. Fallen enemies release essences of various colours, with yellow essences acting as the in-game currency used to purchase new items and upgrade weapons, Red essences replenish your magic, and blue essences heal semi-permanent damage.

You don't always want to absorb these essences for health though. By holding down the Y button Ryu draws them in, allowing him to unleash an Ultimate Technique move. These devastating moves destroy any enemies standing in your way and look spectacular to boot. The standard combat is also extremely brutal, with limbs flying and blood spilling all over the place. All this carnage remains in place too, with body parts lying strewn across the floor and blood smeared over walls. Part of the carnage comes from the new obliteration moves, triggered by pressing Y near to a damaged enemy. It's essential you perform these finishing moves as enemies will keep going at you until they're dead - one set of enemies even commit suicide by blowing themselves up while on top of you.

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In stills Ninja Gaiden 2 doesn't come close to showing its true beauty. In action, with Ryu moving with the fluidity of a ballet dancer and enemies being ripped apart limb by limb, blood spurting out all over the place, it's a sight to behold. It doesn't have the same "WOW" factor of something like Gears of War or BioShock, or even DMC4, but it's still a fine looking game. The best is reserved for the bosses, which are immense. We're talking proper Shadow of the Colossus scale beasts here, each with numerous attack stages and techniques for taking them down. Just when you think you've seen it all you'll come fact to face with another giant monstrosity that defies belief. As with the rest of the game, they're no push over either, with more than a handful almost resulting in my 360 controller being hurtled into the TV screen. If you're able to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 on the hardest difficulty setting you have my utmost respect.

Much has been made of the included Ninja Cinema mode, which lets you watch replays of your action in the game - absolutely all of it - but it's pretty basic. All you're able to do is watch what happened as if you're actually playing and add a black and white filter if you wish. Without the ability to change camera angles or slow down playback it feels like a mode that hasn't been fully fleshed out, which is a shame. Viewing some of the combat in glorious slow motion would have been great. You've also got online leaderboards, although given the game's hardcore following you're going to have to be pretty good to get anywhere near the top.

Enemies come thick and fast, with new types appearing all the time.

Negatives are few and feel like being picky considering the overall quality on offer. The story is largely forgettable and simply serves to fill the gap between levels. Voice acting is pretty cheesy too, although the voices of the main baddies are typical '80s cartoon quality, which makes them sound pretty menacing and cool. Swimming is once again something I'd rather avoid if possible, with the underwater controls feeling a tad clumsy. Running on water is handled well, but if you get caught in a fight it's all too easy to miss an attack and fall in, resulting in some easy hits for your foes. Some complaints could also be levelled at the save points, which on occasion are a little too spread out and the frame rate drops from time to time during particularly action packed moments.

Playing Ninja Gaiden 2 is a very different experience to playing the majority of games. No other game I've ever played is as rewarding so often. Whether it's for simply beating a wave of blood-thirsty bats or for finally slaying a boss you've been tearing your hair out over for more than an hour, the sense of reward and gratification is practically unrivalled. For every level you beat you feel like you're becoming a better gamer and that's a feeling that very few games can claim to give. This is action gaming at its very best.

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