61 Frames Per Second

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• Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and the Second Chance

  There’s just something about a re-release. Not a remake mind you, I mean a game being released a second time, possibly ported to another system, with a few ancillary new features thrown in to entice previous owners to cough up more cash. Sometimes they just get me angry. Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime on Wii with new controls? Why?! You can buy perfectly good versions of those games for half the price and play ‘em the way they were supposed to be played! Grumble mumble whyioughta. That’s just the idiot inside, the natural born fanboy hungry to defend an allegiance, doesn’t matter to what or who. He’s easy to ignore, but hard to suppress. Most of the time, I love a good re-release. Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime on Wii with new controls? Excellent! Those are great games that more people should play, glad they’re getting a new lease on life. It is too much to ask that a game be better than it was the first time around. Read More... Posted Mar 17 2009, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, persona 3 fes, nintendo, wii, sony, resident evil 4, ninja gaiden, metroid prime, tecmo, ninja gaiden 2, devil may cry 3, ninja gaiden sigma, ninja gaiden sigma 2

• Bayonetta: Not As Gratuitous As You Think

  Nah, I’m playing. Bayonetta is totally as gratuitous as you think. Sega came to NYC today and they brought Platinum Games’ Xbox 360/PS3 debut with them. I wasn’t allowed to get my hands on the controller, only a guided playthrough of the game’s first stage, but that was enough to say that Bayonetta’s every bit as over the top as its initial trailer made it out to be. It also looks like a hell of a good time. Read More... Posted Jan 28 2009, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, xbox 360, devil may cry, platinum games, hideki kamiya, bayonetta, sega, ninja gaiden, devil may cry 3

• Double Dragon in the Flesh. The NAKED Flesh.

  I don’t get to write about one of my greatest and longest lasting gaming loves here on 61 Frames Per Second. It’s understandable, after all. They simply don’t make beat ‘em ups very often anymore. In the realm of three-dimensional interactive entertainments, you rarely find a game that is purely about punching people and/or monsters in the groin and dropkicking them in the face. Yes, there’s God Hand, but more often than not, you have to get your thrills from weapons-based affairs like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. Even more rare is the 2D brawler. Castle Crashers was a succulent feast for my starving soul last year. Most of the time, when I need to get a fix of beating the ever-loving hell out of semi-defenseless sprites, I need to go back to the well of yesteryear. I need to fire up the Saturn for a little Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. When I’m feeling especially punchy, I’ll even indulge in a smattering of Maximum Carnage on Super Nintendo. And, of course, there’s always a time for Double Dragon. Sometimes, the only thing that will make you feel whole is making a guy wearing a spandex onesie knee a seven foot tall bald man in the chest. Lucky for me that the modding community keeps reimagining classic experiences like these. It keeps things fresh. Gaming, like marriage, occasionally needs a little spice after twenty years. This, however, is not necessarily what I had in mind. Read More... Posted Jan 13 2009, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, devil may cry, double dragon, ninja gaiden, super nintendo, castle crashers, maximum carnage, dungeons & dragons, abobo, ikkitousen eloquent fist, shadow over mystara, god hand

• New Year's PS3 Wish List: part 1

  I was planning on putting this up before the new year started but I had an end of the year computer melt down. Maybe I should add “get a new computer” to my resolution list. I have no idea if that'll happen but I do know what I'd like to pick up this year: a PS3. It took a long time, but Sony's expensive machine has accumulated enough of a library to interest me with quite a few more good looking titles set to come out this year. With high hopes that the PS3 will see another price drop, I present my list of PS3 gems, old and new, to snatch up in 2009. Read More... Posted Jan 06 2009, 09:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: devil may cry, prince of persia, amber ahlborn, ninja gaiden, ps3, littlebigplanet, top 10, ratchet & clank future

• Rock Star Designer Fallout: Team Ninja’s Post-Itagaki Future

  While the videogame-designer-as-rock-star phenomenon is still a growing factor across the game development landscape, it’s had a recognizable poster boy for close to a decade. The be-sun-spectacled Tomonobu Itagaki is gaming’s very own Noel Gallagher, a mouthy, arrogant source of great quotes with a spotty creative track record, but who’s inarguably responsible for a couple of masterpieces. He’s also a magnet for controversy. Even beyond his inflammatory comments about rival game franchises, namely Tekken and Devil May Cry, Itagaki has been at the center of multiple legal entanglements with his former publisher, Tecmo. First, it was charges of sexual harassment. Then, this past June, Itagaki quit Tecmo after shipping Ninja Gaiden 2 and immediately sued the publisher for not delivering on promised pay bonuses. This is the problem with the rock star designer phenomenon. In the aftermath of Itagaki’s departure from Tecmo, everyone in the industry was asking what’s next for Itagaki and what is his beleaguered publisher – Tecmo’s president resigned shortly after Itagaki left and they were nearly acquired by Square-Enix after that, before agreeing to merge with Koei – going to do without him. No one really asked what Team Ninja, the team that Itagaki founded, was going to do without their public face. How does a development team recover when their image, an identity that’s secured them a devoted audience more than the games they’ve made, has walked away? Read More... Posted Nov 03 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, nintendo ds, microsoft, xbox 360, sony, Playstation, square-enix, ninja gaiden, dead or alive, koei, tecmo, tomonobu itagaki, ninja gaiden dragon sword, ninja gaiden 2

• Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?

  This has been something of a tumultuous year for Tecmo. In the past twelve months, they’ve shipped just four games, three of which are Ninja Gaiden games. The fourth, Fatal Frame IV for Wii, wasn’t even developed in house (it was handled by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.) None of these games were actually published by Tecmo, relying on companies as diverse as Eidos, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Nintendo for distribution. In June, their public face and star designer, the outspoken, boozing womanizer Tomonobu Itagaki, quit the company days after Ninja Gaiden II released to middling reviews. In August, their president resigned and Square-Enix tried to take over the company. Today, Tecmo announced they’ll be the latest Japanese company to find refuge from shrinking domestic business by consolidating. Their new partner will be Koei. Tecmo, I’m worried about you. Times are tough for Japanese developers developing traditional games for home consoles. We’ve had wonderful times together and I’m still looking forward to Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff this fall. Remember all the good times we had with Tecmo Bowl? Yeah. Corporate mergers are a good thing for Japanese developers. Why, just look at previous successes! Read More... Posted Sep 04 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, microsoft, final fantasy, ubisoft, sega, square-enix, ninja gaiden, koei, dynasty warriors, tecmo, namco, eidos, tomonobu itagaki, fatal frame, Bandai, sammy, team ninja

• Where is Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden?

  While they might not be rock stars quite yet, it’s great that videogame developers are becoming more and more recognizable by name. Many, many people know who Hideo Kojima is and what Kojima Prodcutions makes. Sega didn’t just contract Platinum Games to make a few killer titles for them, they signed them on for the name recognition, for the artists’ cred. Back in the day, it wasn’t the people who created games that got recognized. It was only franchise names and publishers that got the love. In 2008, it’s widely known that Tomonobu Itagaki is the head honcho behind Ninja Gaiden. But who is the brain behind Ninja Gaiden on the NES? After doing a bit of digging, I found that Ninja Gaiden and its first sequel were designed by a fellow named Shuichi Sakurazaki and Tecmo’s Team Strong. The game’s trademark cutscenes, arguably the first of their kind, were penned by Sakurazaki himself. But that’s where the information trail ends, with nary an interview with or a Wikipedia page on the man to be found. I found only two other games credited to Sakurazaki, and surprising ones at that. Read More... Posted Aug 27 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, where is, ninja gaiden, klonoa, tecmo, namco, shuichi sakurazaki, tomonobu itagaki

• Worlds of Power: Books That Worried Your Parents and Pissed Off Your Teachers

  My weekend sojourn with Bionic Commando Rearmed's Mr Rad Spencer reminded me of all things good, pure and 8-bit. I even remembered that my husband owns most of the Worlds of Power books, novel "adaptations" of popular Nintendo games from Back in the Day™. He transferred them over to our new basement apartment home after we were married; it's a dowry my parents are proud of, I'm sure. Alas, I cannot find the Bionic Commando adaptation, but if I were to guess, I'd say Rad Spencer wasn't allowed to shoot anyone with his awesome guns. I did find Ninja Gaiden, which is dedicated to "the Ninja in everyone's dad." Holy shit, I thought my dad just sold alarm systems. This is awesome news. I don't know if you kids today have book fairs, but they were a staple of my school days. My generation was not in love with the printed word and teachers did their best to make sure we didn't fall into any affairs. They policed our book fair purchases, declaring comic books to be verboten "trash," especially comic books about the Ninja Turtles or that rude Bart Simpson. The cutting-edge Nintendo Entertainment System was the worst enemy of my grade school marms, so F.X. Nine's Worlds of Power was bookfair contraband, too. Read More... Posted Aug 18 2008, 01:45 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: mega man 2, ninja gaiden, 8-bit, nostalgia, bionic commando rearmed, fandom, game literature, worlds of power, f.x. nine, books

• Whatcha Playing: The New Adventures of the Nintendo DS

  A strange thing happened ‘round about last October. For the first time since its release in April 2005, I was regularly playing games on PSP. I had been carrying a grudge against Sony for promising the world with their first handheld and not delivering even a fraction of the compelling software that they had on the first two home Playstations. But then, all of a sudden, there were all these fantastic games to sink my teeth into. Strategy RPGs like Jeanne D’Arc, old-school action like Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and true genre benders like Crush had finally brought me into the PSP fold. The drawback? My DS went on the shelf and wasn’t touched for months. Oh, I brought it down when Contra 4 came out and on that rare Saturday morning that I felt like going back to my Animal Crossing village to do some weeding, stomp some roaches, and writing some letters. But I wasn’t playing anything new and I started wondering if the brief reign of the DS — not as a force of business but as a fount of compelling design — was over. Man, was that stupid. Read More... Posted Jul 07 2008, 04:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, nintendo ds, psp, castlevania, pokemon, phoenix wright, contra, ninja gaiden, jeanne d'arc, shiren the wanderer, crush

• Watcha Playing: Ninja Gaiden - Dragon Sword

  This is my first play of a Ninja Gaiden game. Back in the NES days I was aware of the series but at the time I pretty much only played hop-and-bop platformers. I did buy the original title on the Virtual Console, but VC games are at the bottom of my backlog pile. So, Dragon Sword is my series introduction and it's a pretty darn good one. Read More... Posted Jun 23 2008, 03:00 PM by Amber Ahlborn with | with no comments Filed under: wii, amber ahlborn, ds, ninja gaiden, watcha playing

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 2

  Love the one you’re with! My first few hours with Ninja Gaiden 2 were disappointing, an experience colored by high standards and higher expectations. I got over it and am now content to enjoy kicking the heads off of evil ninjas. As far as my overt criticisms go, well, they’re holding true. Gaiden 2’s camera and level design are abysmal, not to mention the game’s numerous glitches. Are severed ninja arms supposed to float in mid-air? The game’s got problems. Ninja claws, however, are not one of them. Neither is the sickle and chain or the enormous scythe you steal from a bunch of werewolves. As much as the weapons and scenarios from Ninja Gaiden 2 sound like a series of bad internet jokes from 2004, these additions to protagonist Ryu Hayabusa’s arsenal make for good entertainment. They don’t make for necessarily great play though. The first impression Ninja Gaiden 2 gives is that its combat, the literal core of its design, is unchanged from Ninja Gaiden 1, but subtle changes have been made. Specifically, countering enemy attacks is now easier than it was in the original game. It makes combat more fluid, allowing attacks to string together smoothly without risking injury or having to wait for an opening in an opponent’s assault. As a result Ninja Gaiden 2 is more accessible than its predecessor. But if a game’s foundation is based on being inaccessible, requiring the player carefully study its rules and practice play, isn’t its design diluted by decreasing the demands of its rules? Read More... Posted Jun 17 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, 61fps review, ninja gaiden

• The 61FPS Review: Ninja Gaiden 2 Part 1

  When Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden finally released, it was mind-altering. No three-dimensional action game played as well, looked as good, or had its raw scope, and no one in the world was expecting it to deliver as it did. After all, the game had been vaporware for half a decade. Remember when Tecmo announced it as a game for Sega’s Project Katana (the development codename for Dreamcast)? How about when it was supposed to be a Playstation 2 launch title? By the time Team Ninja announced that they’d be releasing it as an Xbox title, I was starting to wonder if the game existed at all. When no screens or video of the game materialized for another three years, it was fair to assume that Gaiden was destined to be little more than trivia fodder. But then February 2004 rolled around and there it was. That month will, in my mind, always be a benchmark in the history of action games. Ninja Gaiden has aged well in four years, its multiple revisions and expansions right through the Playstation 3 remake Ninja Gaiden Sigma proving its foundation to be sturdy and engaging. 3D action games broadly, however, have surpassed it. God of War brought bigger, more exciting environments and enemy confrontations while improving accessibility and even Ninja Gaiden’s immediate forebear Devil May Cry added more depth in its third and fourth entries. Even the lackluster Heavenly Sword took away Ninja Gaiden’s crown as the genre’s most visceral visual spectacle. I’ve been lukewarm on Ninja Gaiden II since it was announced last year. I couldn’t tell what was wrong. Something about it just seemed so sterile, so rote in comparison to everything else hitting the new wave of consoles. Dynamic limb removal is the big innovation? Really? This is Ninja Gaiden II! Time to redefine 3D action a second time! I realize that’s an unfair expectation to put on a game but it isn’t unfair to expect a modicum of refinement, some change to the established formula that utilizes both hindsight and the power of new technology. That’s why Ninja Gaiden II is, initially, so disappointing. Read More... Posted Jun 09 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, xbox 360, devil may cry, 61fps review, Playstation, ninja gaiden, dreamcast, god of war