Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z Review

    Heads up, men aged 18 to 34 – it’s been observed that you find ninjas exciting, love playing ninja based games and also enjoy bathing in the gore of the living dead. Not only that, but minds immeasurably more powerful than our own understand that you like your women to be peppy (just as long as they’re dressed saucily), appreciate dick jokes of any puerile quality and secretly desire to escape the tediously PC shackles of modern society, in order to act out your fantasy of being the most seemingly obnoxious chap imaginable.

          You’ve been targeted. You should feel special. Tecmo Koei has a game aimed precisely at your needs. And by needs we mean penises. The first time we saw this curious departure from the comparatively sober Ninja Gaiden series was when its first trailer was released for E3 2013. “Honor and death go together like hot sauce and my balls”, explained its antihero Yaiba Kamikaze during the exact moment we imagine one YouTube user found the inspiration to add the comment, “When did Duke Nukem become a ninja?”
 

  Then came the second game trailer, released back in October. It featured more actual in-game action to explain the cut-and-thrust, and slash and slash and slash of the game play. Our unlovable antihero suggested that his female handler should “Take a suck” and there was a cut-scene in which a zombie drove a truck up a ramp, only for that truck to eventually land between the giant upturned model legs of a stripper, before exploding. Hey, that’s what men aged between 18 and 34 like.

          Back then, of course, all we knew of the game was what we had been shown, and what we had been shown were short adverts that seemed to have been smacked through a wormhole from the Nineties by someone using rolled-up copies of FHM and Loaded chained together as nunchaku. Was this really how Ninja Gaiden fans with their love of precise control and expert timing had come to be regarded? Could this really be how Tecmo Koei plans to win fresh sales and gain more fans in 2014?

   

      The action came across as a swirling cacophony of blood and dismemberment bereft of any need for genuine skill. It became apparent that Yaiba’s dialogue had been sloppily crafted with no wit or irony, specifically to entrance fat-fingered pubescent boys – and that we were being patronized. First impressions weren’t great, then. And second impressions were even worse. Well now our appreciation of this bizarrely repellent character has been markedly altered thanks to two key facts: firstly, we’ve actually had a fair amount of hands-on time with the code and were suitably punished by it. Secondly, when we ventured to London to play it under the auspices of Tecmo’s public relations people, we did so in a room full of upright Xbox 360 demo pods, the kind you can find in shops – and thanks to the volume of these units being set so low, we couldn’t make out much of what Yaiba was saying anyway. Instead we mostly had to read his lines from the comic book styling of the cut-scenes.

          We were still privy to the crucial information that he would rather be playing with a different kind of organ (he’d spotted a musical organ – see? Funny!) and we did eventually get to hurl a zombie into that truck we mentioned earlier – because that’s how you open an area’s exit. For the most part, however, his hatred, crassness and outright awfulness were dampened and no one was heard to ask anyone to shut the F up or suck anything. He was just your average cybernetic ninja carving his way through a variety of enemy zombie types, so the only real outward issue was one of cliche.

          A quick refresher: the story goes that Yaiba Kamikaze was slain by Ninja Gaiden’s usual protagonist, Ryu Hayabusa, during a duel that culminated with his torso being vertically bisected. If he was angry with Ryu before that fateful encounter then, when he gets brought back to life by a mysterious organisation that provides him with a robot arm and eye to battle a zombie outbreak, he’s absolutely furious. So Yaiba’s core goal is one of revenge, but to achieve it he’ll first have to decimate an epic army of comical dead people.

          Surprisingly that background story is explained with remarkable speed and a fair amount of animé flourish, so there’s little time wasted by giving any deeper details as to what’s about to kick off. Indeed, because the source of the outbreak is unknown, as are Yaiba’s employers (and Ryu is meant to be out in the city somewhere also killing zombies himself) there’s even a slight mystery to it all. What’s going on? Violence, mostly.

          As expected, we began by killing a lot of walking corpses; pressing buttons and watching the resultant explosions of red splurges and severed limbs. It didn't matter that we were so outnumbered we could barely see where we were – during such hectic crowd control, blocking was barely required; the dead were annihilated and progression could be permitted. What did matter, however, was that we were met by combat that felt inconsequential as, surprisingly, a cybernetic ninja is more than a match for a bunch of corpses. We were ready for banality and at first that’s what we received.

          Executions are clearly key to surviving deeper into Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. To perform one you first need to warm up your victim (or victims) with some basic attacks, especially the kind that involve the swirling of a flail, then press the left trigger during the brief period in which you’re advised to do so by an on-screen hint. Although initially such an exhibition is unnecessary since you can easily avoid damage by moving around, keeping out of harm’s way and mowing down enemies.

       

  Eventually, performing a showy manoeuvre (which occurs so quickly it’s hard to see what actually happened) becomes precisely what you want to be doing as often as possible – because that’s how you get awarded health points. And as you slaughter with speed, so you build up your Blood lust – a pool of power that can be unleashed by clicking both sticks down to perform vastly more devastating attacks for a limited time. So devastating, in fact, that you can kill a major foe in just a few blows. And so we meet specialized “stiffs” (geddit?) who come in a variety of element-based guises when the game begins proper. They’re more eager to block, have a number of different attack styles and only a few are needed to turn what was a cakewalk into a nightmare. The Punch Drunk, for example, can perform a devastating grapple, Fire Stiffs can belch flames and Zombrides and other electricity based units need to have their energy fields broken by Yaiba’s non conducting flail before they can be hurt, while being able to zap from afar. And the Blister Sisters and Bile Stiffs vomit toxic waste.

          Once increasing numbers of these more effective enemies come into play, the game begins to show some form of Devil May Cry-like promise. You’ll need to level your abilities and unlock combos to deal with them and increase your resistance to whatever element they use, and should you perform an execution on one you can rip off part of its body to use as a special, yet silly, weapon. As far as the preview code demonstrated, you’ll also have to deal with more and more issues concerning a fixed camera system, as it was often near impossible to make out what was going on, or what could actually be done about a situation.

          Unlike Ninja Gaiden, the right stick isn’t used to dodge at all. Instead you need to press A to get in and out of the way while pushing in a direction. When we interviewed the developer (turn the page) we asked why such a scheme had been chosen. The answer: to differentiate the game from normal Ninja Gaiden. Fair enough, but it also meant that Yaiba can’t use A to jump during combat – only when he’s moving between combat areas, running on walls and bounding up platforms. Consequently we couldn't even hop up just to make sure where we were, or move the camera to gain a better view.



 Should such confusing irks get resolved, and Yaiba’s personality either be enjoyed or just ignored, then Ninja Gaiden Z might actually have something more to offer than willful offence and crassness. So far, thanks to perplexing camera work and numerous bugs it’s hard to tell, though we have been assured that there’s more to the game’s central character than him just being a nasty and poorly scripted prick. Who knows? He could just be misunderstood, and not just a nimble, nasty sex organ with an insatiable need to slosh other people’s bodily fluids everywhere.

The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief Review

With the exception of Telltale’s wonderful Walking Dead series or the reworkings of Monkey Island, there’s not a lot of love for point and click gaming on the Xbox. Sure, the genre’s slow-moving trappings may seem bland and tedious to a new generation raised on Modern Warfare and adrenaline-soaked bombast, but we’ve still got a soft spot for the cerebral challenges of searching rooms and weighing up the possible contribution of inventory items – which is why we’d really been looking forward to The Raven.

Centered around an infamous thief, a daring robbery, murder and a whole host of intrigue, it’s a classic Agatha Christie detective story (to the point where one character, a successful writer called Lady Westmacott, effectively is Agatha Christie – Mary Westmacott being a pen name of Christie). Set in the mid-Sixties the story is split into three episodes, between them taking in a ride on the Orient Express, a luxury cruise ship and an Egyptian museum, and it brings all the twists and turns of any good detective novel together nicely.

The general character movement is often awkward at best, with Zellner moving at angles that contradict your thumb stick movements, occasionally sliding into railed positions and even turning at 90-degree angles – all very annoying when you’re trying to line up an interactive item. Plus there are often linked areas where you exit walking up the screen, only to enter the next area at the top of the screen, and so if you keep pushing the thumb stick you simply turn around and walk out again in some frustrating circle of stupidity. The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief

Bizarrely there are also sections played in terribly poor lighting and even near-pitch darkness, with some crucial items invisible to spot without using an on-screen prompt and pointless cut-scenes played out that you just can’t see. Indeed, we could quite easily have spent a lot more of this review giving The Raven quite a kicking for its technical ineptitude, but thankfully there’s a cracking adventure to be had that more than makes up for its shortcomings.

The story line is very much in the Agatha Christie mold, with a handful of characters drawn together and all under suspicion for one thing or another. As Zellner you’ll get to speak to all of them in some detail, sometimes to get information crucial to your investigation, at others just to unearth a surprising amount of background detail or the extenuating circumstances behind their behavior. There are dialogue trees in place, but there are precious few moments of genuine consequence behind what you go for, and most of the time you’ll be able to run through the whole list in sequence and not miss a thing.

As for the engagement with the world itself, interactive items will be highlighted with an icon when you’re nearby, with a flick of the right stick scrolling through multiple items and, as you’d expect, there are things that can be added to your inventory ready to be combined with other elements through a little bit of trial and error. As mentioned, it’s not a flawless system and you’ll frequently have to examine the same item several times to get all the information you need, but once you've exhausted an item the icon will either disappear or you’ll hit a tell-tale conversation loop.


What makes The Raven both challenging and enjoyable is that it rides a pretty fair line when it comes to logical progression. There are no patronizing way points or markers to follow, but for the most part you’ll have some idea of what you need to do, even if how you need to do it isn't quite so obvious. If you get stuck you have a case notebook that details all the information you've gathered and offers up hints as to what you should do next. Similarly a tap of the X button will highlight all possible interactive items on the screen – though at the cost of a few points that will affect your overall rating in each episode.

There is something of a rigid linearity to events at times, with things having to be approached in a certain order with little scope for shortcuts – and often that means walking between the limited number of environments repeatedly (and enduring the load times between each one) to check and recheck the same places with new tools.

There are also several moments where the solution to a situation isn't entirely obvious, regardless of the clues provided, or options won’t appear unless you’re holding a certain item (such as brandishing a rag before seeing the prompt to mop up some otherwise invisible grease). But the trial and error process isn't overly taxing and, in fairness to the game, it only highlights possible combinations of items so you can quickly discount a lot of things that won’t work.

Despite getting stuck a fair few times, our main problem with the whole investigation side of things is how sometimes you can get rewarded for exploring all areas and every possibility in a scene, and at others you get punished for it. Not seriously, but there’s nothing to indicate that speaking to person X before person Y will cause you to miss a small chunk of the game or some information that, while never crucial to your investigation, is still of interest. Perhaps this gives The Raven a limited replay value, but we’d prefer a little more openness. The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief Review

Seasoned point and clickers will soon find it easy to get to grips with The Raven’s nicely simplified system, though, and once you settle down into the story driven adventure it really is surprisingly difficult to put down. There’s a solid list of staple Christie characters, including a wealthy baroness (complete with downtrodden butler), a professor, a creepy German doctor and a slightly annoying kid, and the whimsical banter of Zellner’s lead character is largely charming throughout as he mixes educational and case-related explanations with character deconstructions and cheery asides.

The voice acting is solid, if a little slow-paced at times (with more than a few awkward pauses between lines) and there’s a quality orchestral score to help cement the overall tone. What also makes the series interesting is how the story takes a twist in the middle of episode two, with you taking on the role of one of the antagonists – a cohort of The Raven – with a third playable character in Episode 3. This takes you back to the same settings and events already played out, but seen from an all-new perspective. Cynics may view this as a cheap ploy to reuse assets, but it creates an intriguing dynamic as you put into play the very events that you've previously investigated as Zellner – and while some things begin to make more sense, it also adds further layers to the ongoing narrative.

There are plenty more twists and turns along the way as well, and the game does what every good detective story should and explains numerous seemingly minor events and odd quirks before its third and final episode concludes in an entirely satisfying manner.

It’s worth pointing out that, unlike the episodic nature of The Walking Dead, The Raven is most certainly a singular adventure split into three parts. There’s little merit in playing just one episode and so if you’re going to commit to the game, you really should consider it a £24 title, which makes it a rather pricey Live Arcade purchase. Depending on your sleuthing skills there’s still a good day to be spent on each one, though – we replayed the first episode using a walk through to check what we’d missed and this highly slip streamed approach still took five hours. The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief

While lacking the technical finesse that we've come to expect from Arcade titles these days, there’s a certain charm to The Raven that makes it hard to begrudge despite its obvious flaws. Perhaps its rough and unready façade is a part of that appeal, but there’s a great story supported by a decent cast of characters (some likable, others not so much, and some oddly stilted in conversation) and if you grew up watching film or TV adaptations of Agatha Christie novels on a Sunday afternoon before booting up Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island, then this is very much for you. If not, we’d still encourage you to hunt down The Raven because though it’s not a great game, it’s still a largely enjoyable adventure.

Conclusion:

With a very low-budget look and some occasionally awkward game play, The Raven is probably a game to be enjoyed more for its story than for its point and click action. But while there may not be a lot of excitement to this slow-burning saga, there are plenty of moments to bring a smile to the corner of your mouth or that sweet sense of satisfaction when you finally solve a problem and the next vital clue is revealed. At £24 for what needs to be considered as a three-part singular story it’s a rather pricey, investment and certainly not one that everyone will get the same rewards from, but for fans of a certain vintage there’s a great little adventure to be had. The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief Review

Other Reviews:

WRC FIA World Rally Championship

Battlefield 4: China Rising

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Batman Arkham Origins

Air Conflicts: Vietnam 

What Would You Like To See A Review On Next? Please Make Your Comments Below.

Your Request Must Be: Top 25 List, Or On A List Of Best Sellers Under The Following Categories, Electronics, Computers, Gaming, Gaming Consoles, and Video Games.

MXGP – The Official Motorcross Video Game

Milestone really didn’t need to utline the four pillars behind its next racing title. “Simulation, realism, authenticity and loyalty to the license” are all features we’ve come to expect from the Italian studio that’s been making racing games using those very foundations for some 20 years. What remains to be seen is whether the clearly technically proficient developer can also bring a little depth and flair to its games and take them to the next level.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not after exaggerated arcade silliness that will detract from those sim-based foundations; although it has to be said that Milestone’s previous off-road biker, 2012’s MUD, was a little more over-the-top than its usual portfolio. It’s the extra layers of visual finesse and features that extend beyond the standard (and once again fully licensed) Championship that we’re looking for. Reasons that could comfortably have elevated WRC 4 up at least a point from its recent 7 out of 10 review.

What we will get is a full-on, dirtstained, rough and ready Career mode, including the full rosters of bikes and riders from the 2013 season. Considering it’s pretty much the same setup as MUD, we’re assuming the team is going for a rebranding rather than a straight sequel due to the slightly more serious shift in tone for MXGP, which is focusing on that “realistic simulation”. If so, hopefully this means a reworked control system to improve the relationship between bike and rider (more in the ‘On Yer Bike’ boxout).



There will be full track degradation in place as you’d expect, with ruts deepening as a race goes on, although there’s no word on whether there’ll be a weather system that would mean a rainy day could greatly impact upon the ongoing deformation. Big jumps will be included, too, with the chance to pull off tricks as you sail through the air, and presumably earn a few extra rewards for risking your ontrack position to please the fans, and on a base level, there’s plenty to look forward to.

It may be a little over-demanding for us to expect anything more, especially from a developer with limited resources, and you can be sure that those four aforementioned pillars will be met by this passionate racing studio. Delivering the basics is the bottom line in gaming and given Milestone’s track record (pun only partially intended) we don’t doubt the appeal of MXGP. But while that should be enough to appease the hardcore market, the mainstream racer just wants that little bit more.

Other Reviews:

WRC FIA World Rally Championship

Battlefield 4: China Rising

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Batman Arkham Origins

Air Conflicts: Vietnam 

What Would You Like To See A Review On Next? Please Make Your Comments Below.

Your Request Must Be: Top 25 List, Or On A List Of Best Sellers Under The FollowingCategories, Electronics, Computers, Gaming, Gaming Consoles, and Video Games.