Ninja Gaiden
Okay I can no longer wait for this game! The Hype is getting to me (I'm going insane) so I really want to know if there are any of you out there that are planning to buy it?
I check gamespot, and so far the hands on impression looks very positive.
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/ninjagaiden/preview_6089781.html
Is anyone waiting for this title to be realise?
I sold this game. It wasn't hard, just cheap.
I'd continually die until I figured out a set pattern of a boss. Then it'd become easy. I'd die constantly until I realised where certain Ninjas would spawn along a set path. Then it'd become easy.
The only thing that was "hardcore" about Ninja Gaiden was the fact that it used cheap tactics, masquerading as "difficulty". Reaction played too small a part within the game. I like to think on my feet, I want patterns to adapt and change as I do. With Ninja Gaiden, it felt distinctly old school. Not hardcore old-school, but old school in the fact that the design felt old and tired.
I wouldn't mind if I died at the hands of truly cunning AI, I would feel humbled, and impressed. Sad thing is, it was mainly down to dodgy spawning, cheap trial and error gameplay and a camera that simply refused to cooperate. Moving a camera should not constitute as hardcore gameplay, that's a bad excuse for crap design.
I managed to finish Ninja Gaiden, but man I had about zero percent fun from it. I finished it only because I kept thinking I would somehow find what was so amazing about it, why this game was hyped up. The only thing that impressed me was the graphics and the fluidity of the animation. I also thought the lead character was immensely cool.
However, the gameplay was trial and error CRAP. Wannabe hardcore gamers would revel in it's fake difficulty, whereas anyone with half a brain would realise the game used robotic, cheap tactics, cheap spawning, giving camera control to the player and ambiguous attack patterns to give the illusion of true difficulty.
It's the gaming equivalent of competing in a F1 race, only you have no steering wheel and everybody else gets five laps head start. It's fake difficulty. Badly designed game. Excuse me if my honesty offends.