Wait!? Another Ninja Gaiden Game!?

Being a so called “gamer,” I usually make sure to keep up to with the latest titles that won’t make me pay an arm and a leg to purchase the game and my first born for all the DLC. Yes, I’m looking at you Borderlands 2 and yes, I did lose my season pass. Thank you for asking. As of late however, I've been feeling pretty lazy when it comes down to actually looking at what the new releases are. This could be due to the fact that almost everything new is a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot and all I want is something new enough to hold my attention span for more than ten seconds and my final resort of just looking out for new games with the first five seconds of a YouTube advert before slamming on the skip button hasn't paid off. Until now that is. 

After the initial shock that I was actually going to watch an entire YouTube advert even though the skip button expected its daily finger mashing and my not so witty response on said advert, I finally noticed that what I was watching was actually intriguing me. The very first thing that took my attention was the fact that you played as a ninja and this meant one of two things; a large publisher was finally going to launch a new I.P that may or may not suck but would be likely to be brimming with some sort of first day downloadable content that would have some sort of significance to game mechanics or story and would only be available to those willing to pay the same amount as a prestigious back ally prostitute; no offense to prostitutes or back alleys, or it was Ninja Gaiden and to my not so utter amazement, it was the latter.

“Oh goody” I thought to myself “time to paint the world red, slaughter millions and then wonder why I’m playing resident evil even though the disk read Ninja Gaiden.” As you can tell, the thoughts of Ninja Gaiden 3 were still on my mind. The strange thing was that this new addition to the series, which was going through a mid life crisis by the third game, was really starting to grab my attention the longer I watched the trailer. The comic book like art style was kinda appealing with the blood splatter leaving a comical effect rather than one that made me refuse to look at anything red the same way again without going into some sort of Vietnam War flashback. However, the thought that this was a brand new spin off in a well known series left me puzzled as to why their wasn't too much hype surrounding it so I decided to look around online in an in-depth manner that would make me feel like I was actually doing something of any significance, meaning off to Wikipedia I went! 

Why did no one tell me about this!? Oh that's right. Thank you YouTube.

Upon first glance, I pretty much gathered the basic information. it was called Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z and was going to be released on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC but not the newest boys in town which kinda confused me. It was running on unreal engine 3 for those of you interested in that and was being released in March 2014. A little more digging around told me that they were being released for the Xbox One and PS4 and that Wikipedia was just being its usual forgetful self. Some things never change.  

So, you go around smashing windows or what?

Anyway, the story is that you play as the powerful ninja Yaiba Kamikaze, which made the thought “are you fucking kidding me with that last name?” come to mind although yelling “Kamikaze!” as you dived into a mountain of enemies with only a slither of health left did leave a bit of smile on my face. You just can’t beat a good Leroy Jenkins moment. 

As it goes, Yaiba was rolling with the baddest boys in the school yard when one day, things got pretty boring so he massacred everyone and if any of you think the thought “well that escalated quickly” I might have to punch you. Mentally that is. Well you are behind a screen. Anyway, back to the “story” if you could call it that. So after some things happened and Yaiba was told off by the school teachers, he was sent to the principal’s office where the principal turn out to be the one and only Ryu Hayabusa. 

Not going to lie but Ryu looks pretty cool.
But what's up with those eyes? 

Disappointed with your behavior and attitude to challenge his authority, he gives you a firm telling off by slicing off your arm and eye. What the hell kind of school is this!? 

So later, you get your arm and eye replaced by cool robotic ones and I have yet to know if Mr Kamikaze asked for this. Good for you if you got the reference. As for those that didn't, play more video games and you won't feel so left out. So now with your new badass arm and eye you go out to exact your revenge on Ryu by stopping a zombie invasion that he’s also trying to stop.

This has been confirmed: He does indeed lift. 

Yep, you did read that me right. So, there are now zombies and ninjas. First it was the mutants that made us feel as if were playing Resident Ninja. Now it's Ninja of Duty: Black Z. I see way to many flaws with this so I’ll only say one thing; that sword better feel awesome slicing through hoards of zombies.

And that nicely moves us along into game play. Firstly, it’s a Ninja Gaiden game so it will be a third person hack and slash that has pretty much the same features as those in the previous games. You can run, jump, block, attack, breath, blink, kill stuff that looked at you funny and even ask out that girl you've already blew your chances with when you sneezed in her face from saying "hi" to her but now you’re a ninja so even if she still says no, you can just put a hit out on her, fade into the shadows and hang out with your ninja buddies and do ninja stuff. There is also a score multiplier to once again grow your e-peni-I mean, combos. Finally, the ultimate technique mode has been replaced by Bloodlust mode. This allows you to kill things quicker. How innovative indeed. All in all, this sounds like pretty much the same holes in a new boat but I’ll let you guys decide if that sounds good or not. You’re all big boys now so I think you can look up this game for yourself. If you’re interested that is.

Hope you guys were at least mildly amused by my mini rant and notification of the existence of this game kinda thing. As I am putting this out there, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z has not yet been released and I may report back if it looks appealing enough to buy. Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you guys next time.