Ninja Gaiden Black -- Initial Impression.

The next game for me is Ninja Gaiden Black for the Xbox. Keldroc has been on me to play Ninja Gaiden for over a year. I didn't play it because I'm a Shinobi fan first and foremost, but secondly it just came out in the middle of the holiday rush and it wasn't high on my list. It fell by the wayside. I meant to grab it from the bargain bin at $19, but it had vanished. Lucky enough Tecmo saw fit to release Ninja Gaiden Black. Ninja Gaiden Black contains the whole of Ninja Gaiden, and adds in the Xbox Live download content of the Hurricane Packs one and two. Tecmo also added some new content on top of that in the form of a mission mode and the original arcade game as an unlockable bonus. The initial things that jump out are the game is gorgeous. It's pure eye candy. The story is seemingly headed for the Japanese very silly and completely over the top category. The controls are intuitive with little learning curve in their use. The camera isn't going to be the greatest, as there is seemingly a lot of running into the screen. A camera angle I almost always despise. Ninja Gaiden has a reputation as being one of the hardest games ever made, let alone for this generation. My initial impressions tell me it might be up there, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be any harder than say Shinobi, Nightshade, or Gunvalkyrie. We'll get into all the details as I play on, of course.