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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land We knew Ninja Gaiden II Mission Mode was coming on July 25th, but what exactly is Mission Mode? Mission Mode is a pack of 25 new missions for the game, broken up into two sets. Karma missions involve trying to get the highest possible score, while survival missions are all about taking on hordes of enemies with a single weapon to see how long you last.
The pack will be available tomorrow for 800 Microsoft points, or the price of your standard Xbox Live Arcade title. Is it worth it? Not a clue. A real ninja does not pay to go on missions – we get paid for them, and then kill the guy who pays us, taking the rest of his money.
More Ninja Gaiden II Missions for Your Pleasure! [Gamerscore Blog]
They’re the people in the shadows. You don’t know their names, but you know their words. They localizers, the folks that take games from not only another language, but also another culture and open them up for another audience. “Good translation is tough to quantify”, says Tokyo-based localizer Matt Alt. “If it’s well done, it sort of disappears. Ideally the person playing the game doesn’t even realise they’re reading something that wasn’t originally written in their native tongue”. He runs AltJapan along with his wife (and company president!) Hiroko Yoda run out of a small second story office on Tokyo’s westside. And with 99.999 percent of the games AltJapan works on that’s true. Well, save for one: Ninja Gaiden II.
Those looking for more to do in Ninja Gaiden II should start rooting through the couch cushions for loose Microsoft Points, because details on the game’s DLC have appeared, like, out of nowhere. One second there’s a puff of smoke, the next Gamersyde reports that you’ll be paying 800 MS Points for 25 new missions via Xbox Live. Cheap!
According to the report, two types of self-contained missions will extend the life of your Ninja Gaiden II experience: “Karma Attack missions task you with obtaining the highest score, while Survival missions give you a single weapon to fight off as many enemies as possible”. What? No camera battle missions? That’s the best part!
Ninja Gaiden DLC details [Gamersyde]
July is Ninja Month! So says Xbox Live, which now randomly sports a Ninja Live ad which takes you to ninja paradise. Well, not exactly ninja paradise. In ninja paradise, you’d all be dead. Instead, you get links to ninja movies and television shows, ninja games, ninja style, and this particular Ninja Gaiden II page, which displays the dates for new Ninja Gaiden II content. July 11th sees the release of NGII Skull videos, and then on the 25th the game gets its Mission Mode on righteously.
I personally want to thank Microsoft for making Ninja Month every bit as special as they did Pirate Month. Oh wait, there wasn’t a Pirate Month, now was there? FACE!
Ninja Gaiden II owners, Tecmo has stuff for you to buy. Today, three costume packs for Ryu Hayabusa went up on Xbox LIVE. The three packs (dubbed “Demon”, “Shadow Walker”, and “BioMetal”) are 200 Microsoft Points a piece — that’s $US 2.50 in US money. Each pack contains five costumes variations on the pack’s theme. So that works out to fifty cents an outfit. Way cheaper than real ninja clothes!
コスチュームパック [IT Media]
Whoah, NECA! Slow down! You’ll wear yourself out, then you won’t be any good to anyone. Not content with releasing God of War figures, and Gears of War of War figures, and Bionic Commando figures, they’ve just released shots of a Ninja Gaiden II figure as well. Of course, it’s of Ryu Hayabusa, who’ll stand 7″ tall and come with a bunch of weapons and accessories when he’s released in September. In case you haven’t noticed with those ball hips and wacky shoulders, the emphasis here is on his flexibility, not his detail.
The Itagaki-Tecmo pissing match may have hit a new level of animosity. 1Up, attributing only “word on the street,” reports that as many as 36 key members of Team Ninja are walking, and preparing a class-action lawsuit against Tecmo regarding unpaid bonuses they were due for completed games.
Earlier this month Tomonobu Itagaki, who leads/led Team Ninja, announced his intention to quit Tecmo, effective July 1. In his announcement he was PO’d about a company decision not to pay bonuses on a completed game, so, chances are his comrades feel the same. Tecmo, for its part, says the bonus to Itagaki that is in dispute was approved by a previous management team, not the current one.
1Up also writes:
You heard right, I said cheap! Well, Economical Gamer‘s Anthony said it first, and he has prices to back it up.
If you’re willing to head to your closest Big W, you can grab both Ninja Gaiden II and MGS 4 for $78.84 and $94.84 respectively. Alternatively, JB Hi-Fi has the titles for $79 and $99. As for the MGS4 PS3 bundle, the cheapest offer is at Dick Smith, where it’s retailing for $729.
Last month when I spoke with Tomonobu Itagaki in San Francisco he told me that Ninja Gaiden II represented the culmination, the absolute height of the franchise and because of this he would no longer be making any more Ninja Gaiden games. Ninja Gaiden has always been about perfection of timing, on some level the art of the sword, this is no more evident than in this latest game.
But is Ninja Gaiden II really the franchise’s swan song or is Itagaki’s decision to ditch Team Ninja and sue Tecmo over unpaid bonuses the real reason he won’t be making any more of the titles?
