Ninja Gaiden II is a roaming beat em up style adventure which looks and plays very similar to the Devil May Cry games.I had not played any of the previous games in the series so was not entirely sure what to expect.

The graphics are very good with excellent detail but I did notice a fair bit of slowdown when there was a lot going on the screen at once.Not withstanding that it is certainly pretty impressive to look at and the action runs at a very impressive pace.

You can run,jump,block,either attack quickly or attack slower with increased damage to your opponents or you can throw ninja stars at them at a rate of about 1 a second.You can mix and match these attacks and build up combo's,again in a similar way to those in the Devil May Cry games.

However,once this game got going I found it very hard and I have to say pretty repetitive.Perhaps as I had not played any of the earlier games in the series this was to be partially expected ?.I got a feeling of frustration as the game didn't seem to want to let me in.It quickly turned into a feast of mindless button mashing as the second I stopped to think about what I was doing I was sliced into a million pieces.The camera angles can be very frustrating as well.On a few occasions I found myself trying to entice enemies to parts of the screen where I could actually see them !.

This game has an 18 age rating which is understandable as it is very violent and there is blood and missing limbs flying about pretty much all of the time.This too gets a touch repetitive in my opinion and unlike other games it really doesn't create any kind of atmosphere (as it did in say Gears Of War) nor does it add anything to the gameplay,its just there.Perhaps an easier learning curve and the blood and violence toned down a little bit may have helped ?.

Ninja Gaiden II is not a bad game,but in my opinion it is a very average one.I played it for a couple of nights and then happily returned it.It didn't really grab me nor did it make me want to carry on playing through it.I would say its obviously one for fans of the Ninja Gaiden series.But there really isn't anything to make it of interest to those of us who are not.

Try before you buy 6/10.