Now Playing: Ninja Gaiden II

Seriously? Screw this game. I mean screw it with a drill and stomp on it for good measure. My Fair Lady commented that she was under the impression gaming should be relaxing, and shouldn't cause my veins to buldge and my fury to explode into Hulk-like rage.

I'm strangely conflicted though with "Ninja Gaiden II" because while there is literally no end to the staggering amount of frustration, the other end of the spectrum is present as well. The ways in which you can just kill the ever loving crap out of evil ninjas is astonishing. Your character, Ryu, starts out as a badass and continues from that lofty perch up to the level of furious monster that will kill you so hard. But in between these moments of blood drenched bliss are so many sequences of frustration that will literally cause you to blow all of your fuses at once.

Take these examples of both ends of the spectrum:

1) When fighting ninjas, the ways in which you dispense the pain are countless. When decapitating a foe is just the beginning of you killing them, then you know you're in for a good time. It just melts your brain when you pull off a combo that results in 15 dead ninjas and 60+ body parts. I'd start swinging swords, flails, or this big ass scythe and all around me body parts and gore are flying. And when you think you've killed someone enough, Ryu stabs them in just the right way and really tears their body apart. It's tough to beat that.

2) Then you have boss fights either in the middle of a level or at the end of it that make you want to literally kill the development team, resurrect them, and kill them again until you get bored. Or you can hit the level I did last night (Ch. 13) which funnels you down a long series of tunnels packed to the gills with monsters, all of whom can hit you constantly, and there are no save stations in sight. Also, it doesn't help that the camera is glued to Ryu's heavily muscled ass. I don't mind fighting a room full of bad guys, but when half of them are off camera and able to hit me without me being able to at least judge the distance between us, I get frustrated.

On any given playthough, I scream in fury at the game. Not helping matters is the fact that 95% of the enemies are cheating bastards. Oh no, I shall not be replaying this game, Team Ninja, not now or ever. But at this point I'm one chapter away from the end and I'm going to soldier on and complete it just to say I did it. Screw this game. I'm going to beat it into the ground and then I may stomp on it for good measure.