Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 Review

It's a sad fact that among the constant flood of games based on popular anime series, many succeed at delivering lots of characters, music, and other content that appeal to devoted fans, but can't manage to support all these goodies with a compelling gameplay experience. It's refreshing, then, that the Ultimate Ninja Storm series continues to deliver moments that capture the bristling energy and excitement of Naruto. Unfortunately, these terrific bits are separated by a great deal of dull filler, but the intensity Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 delivers at its best makes enduring these tedious stretches worth it in the end.

The tale you experience in the Ultimate Adventure mode is told with a great deal of dramatic flair, and it's clear that a lot of care went into doing these characters and events justice. As the hotheaded young ninja Naruto and his friends struggle against evil forces to protect Hidden Leaf Village, moody music, effective camera movement, and great voice acting all enhance the impact of their brave struggles and the poignancy of their noble sacrifices. Unfortunately, the story also casually throws around so many characters, organizations, and obscure terms without explanation that much will be lost on those who come to Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 without knowing their Akatsuke from their Kazekage. This game is unapologetically one for the fans, and it makes no effort to embrace anyone else.

The Ultimate Adventure mode has a lot to offer, but you need to slog through a lot of boring exploration to get to the good stuff. A map always tells you exactly where you need to go next to advance the story. The locations along your way may be gorgeous, but having to run through screen after screen of Hidden Leaf Village streets to make your way to the Hokage's chambers, click through a bunch of text, and then run back through those same streets again is just dull. Yet you need to run through these streets and many other locations time and time again during the course of the story. The only significant thing to do on any of these screens is to push a button in specific spots to look for materials you can give to merchants so that they can make new goods to offer you. But while these items offer a range of beneficial effects like slowing down your opponent for a little while or temporarily increasing your attack power, stopping every few steps to pick up a mushroom, feather, or arrowhead gets tiresome, and the benefits of these items aren't worth the added time it takes you. You'll want to get through these boring stretches as quickly as you can. Making matters worse, you're frequently interrupted by load times that, while not painfully long, are long enough to break up the flow of the game and make the already unwelcome process of traveling even more unpleasant.

Ultimate Adventure mode's tale is spread across seven chapters, and the highlights that punctuate these chapters are the epic boss battles that conclude them. Particularly memorable are the quick-time events that you must complete to emerge from these struggles victorious. As a gameplay mechanic, quick-time events aren't novel anymore, but the ones you experience here are made terrific by the surprisingly intense action that accompanies them. To go into much detail about these events would be to spoil some of the game's best moments, but suffice it to say that towering monsters do battle, entire cities are threatened with destruction, and hundreds of Naruto clones fill the sky at once. These jaw-dropping sequences are packed with all the massive summonings, speedy chase sequences, and impossible fight choreography that typify the action of the anime. And although you don't have direct control at these times, needing to quickly push specific sequences of buttons or wildly pound the same button repeatedly makes you feel far more invested in these dire moments than you would if they just played out in cutscenes.

The actual fighting in Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 isn't quite as epic as these quick-time events, but it looks great and, at least in the context of the Ultimate Adventure mode, it feels pretty good, too. The four face buttons are used for jumping, tossing shuriken, striking your opponent, and charging up your chakra, an energy that you can then use in conjunction with your other attacks to make them more powerful. The shoulder buttons are used for calling on other characters for a bit of support and for guarding against enemy attacks. If you guard at the precise moment you're attacked, you'll pull off a substitution jutsu, immediately appearing behind your opponent and getting a chance to put him or her on the defensive. Because each character pulls off his or her powerful combos with the same single button and simple inputs of the left thumbstick as every other character, the fighting is immediately accessible, and the way the story jumps between characters doesn't pose any problem.

The flip side of this is that there isn't a great deal of depth to the fighting. These button-mashing antics make for some fun and very flashy fights in the single-player story mode. The camera swings around to frame the action dramatically, and the spectacular chakra attacks you can perform make you feel like you've really harnessed the incredible powers of these characters. But as a multiplayer fighter, it doesn't hold up. It's a system that lends itself to easily pulling off the same outrageous moves over and over, not one that emphasizes tactics and strategy. Defeating characters with these limited repertoires of moves is satisfying when there are motivations to do so provided by the story. But as incredible as these fights may look, their shallowness quickly makes them unsatisfying when played competitively against other players. The introduction of online support is still a welcome one for the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, and Naruto fans will have a bit of fun pitting their favorite characters against each other. But this is no substitute for a proper fighting game.

Through it all, though, the visuals never cease to impress. Like its predecessor, Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 has vibrant colors and silky-smooth animation that capture the look of the anime with breathtaking accuracy. The bridges, streets, and shops of Hidden Leaf Village and the other areas you visit have a painterly quality that elevates them above the appealingly cartoony visuals of a typical cel-shaded game to create something truly beautiful. The sound is terrific, too. The voice cast delivers performances filled with the heightened emotions you'd expect from a saga about powerful ninjas locked in a struggle between good and evil, without going overboard and making the material seem goofy. The score sets just the right tone for this tale; melancholy piano melodies and haunting flutes accompany the story's more serious moments, but the music shifts into high gear once the fists start flying.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 delivers a well-told and memorable tale that does right by the characters and locations of the popular anime and is peppered throughout with some stunning moments that make you feel like tremendously powerful forces are at work here. Unfortunately, those great moments are separated by a whole lot of forgettable traveling back and forth through a world that looks gorgeous but that you can't interact with in any interesting ways, and although the fighting system works well enough in the context of the story, it doesn't have the depth necessary to stand on its own for very long. But the good moments are good enough to make up for the game's shortcomings, and you'll remember the intensity of those epic battles long after the tedium of what's in between has faded from memory.

Harsh as it seems to say, the Bloody Roar series has always focused on style over substance. With its focus on fighting theatrics and half-man, half-beast designs, Eighting's breed of fighter seems content to gloss over things like technique and depth, delivering a visually dynamic, yet ultimately limited, experience. Bloody Roar 3 is the developer's latest, and it doesn't buck the series' legacy at all. The game is visually keen, and its pacing is marvelous, but its fighting system is remarkably slim, emphasizing one-button combos and nearly instant-kill supers. For what it's worth, newcomers will be able to get up to speed very quickly.

The Bloody Roar series, for those new to it, is about human warriors with the supernatural ability to assume the forms of beasts. Aside from the token werewolves, -lions, and -bats, the series features a handful of other less orthodox hybrids--in it, you'll find werechameleons, -moles, -bunnies, and even -robots (or "iron moles"). For its quirky, imaginative designs, the games deserve credit. Even its basic premise--fighters transforming into beasts and their fighting styles being altered--was definitely workable, the first time around. But after two iterations and roughly zero major alterations to the formula, the series is screaming for a change--a change that Bloody Roar 3 fails to deliver.

Bloody Roar 3's control scheme is pretty basic. There's one button for punching, and one for kicking, along with one that simulates the pressing of both simultaneously, for grabbing. There's also the beast-change button, which allows for metamorphosing once the rage meter is full. The shoulder buttons, finally, have right and left sidestepping commands mapped to them, allowing you to somewhat effectively circle or otherwise spatially flimflam your opponent. The controls are modified slightly once you're in beast mode--the button previously used to shape-shift allows you to execute specials and supers. As you've surely surmised, the control scheme is frightfully simple. And while that isn't necessarily negative in itself, the game's fighting system, sadly, in no way warrants anything more complex. Even its bare-bones control scheme, in fact, often seems squandered.

Bloody Roar 3--like its predecessors--is all about one-button 12-hit combos, resulting in spectacular, albeit canned, animations. If you keep pressing the punch or kick button long enough, depending on your character, you'll eventually start juggling your opponent, delivering massive amounts of damage. Do this in a corner, and the effects are devastating. Not that's it cheap, however--every single character can do this, turning most fights into a tug-of-war, of sorts, as both you and your opponent try to ease one another into your respective corners. The game's special moves were designed with a similar sensibility--they're basically all achieved by either full- or half-circle motions, forward or backward, along with punch or kick. When in beast mode, your character will gain access to a couple of extra supers, which serves to mix it up a bit, though not nearly enough; ideally, the beast mode should dramatically change your character's fighting style, resulting in not just an aesthetic shift in form, but also a tangible alteration in gameplay. As is, Bloody Roar 3's beast form merely brings with it more damaging attacks, a regenerating health bar, and access to a handful of exclusive special moves and, of course, the game-breaking supers.

Bloody Roar 3's super moves are simultaneously its most intriguing elements and its most broken. Most characters have access to two of them, and they're executed by the perennial double-half-circle motions used extensively by 2D fighters. Basically, if you're hit by one of these supers, your chances of winning the match drop dramatically. They deliver intense amounts of damage, and once you're hit with the initial blow, there's no way to counter or defend against them. To its credit, Eighting did limit their use, a bit--you can only execute them in beast mode, as mentioned before, and executing a super forces you to shape-shift into your regular form, even if you miss. They still throw your game off, though, more often than not, and it takes no real skill--aside from the ability to adequately gauge distance--to execute them effectively. The supers are accompanied by ludicrously pretty particle effects, though, as well as some top-notch animations and dynamic camera shifts.

And with a game as dynamic as Bloody Roar 3 is to begin with, it really does add a lot to the spectacle. In truth, it's really hard to say anything negative about the game's production. The character designs are fanciful and imaginative, if not truly inspired, and some of the beast forms border on slapstick humor. Shina (formerly Marvel), for example, in her beast form and denim costume, is almost too much. When coupled with the game's bold animations and spectacular use of particle effects (some heavy swings, for instance, are emphasized by translucent motion lines), the game is quite a pleasure to behold. It really does look like a marvelous fighter, until you pick up the controller.

Given the strides in 3D fighter design made by companies like Namco, Sega, and Tecmo, there really is no reason for anyone to pay much attention to Bloody Roar 3, aside from its bold visual stylings and faux heavy metal soundtrack. If you like the Bloody Roar series already, though, then this might be right up your alley. But if you like fighting games for their technique and depth of design, then this certainly won't hold your attention.

X-Men: Mutant Academy Review

Hey, that X-Men movie is just around the corner, and Activision's X-Men fighting game is on store shelves just in time. Coincidence? Not by a long shot. Developed by Paradox - the company behind Activision's Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and the never-published Thrill Kill - Mutant Academy takes a few pages out of Capcom's fighting game book, but not enough to make it exciting for any real length of time.

With the exception of its super-move system, Mutant Academy is your basic fighting game, using six buttons, three punches, and three kicks. The roster is populated by the likes of Cyclops, Wolverine, Gambit, Magneto, and Toad. Most of the characters have been done up in true Street Fighter fashion, complete with fireballs, dragon punches, and flash kicks. In fact, Cyclops plays a whole lot like the Cyclops in Capcom's series of Marvel-licensed games, all the way down to the character's gigantic optic-blast super move. Where the game attempts to innovate is in its super-move system. Each character has three different supers, which are charged up by three different meters. There's also some super-meter management going on, as you can move charged-up super energy from one meter to another.

Modewise, the game contains the bare essentials required in a fighting game. There are arcade, survival, and versus modes, as well as a training mode, which, like Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, walks you through all your basic and special attacks at a snail's pace. The training mode is useful, but having to listen to Professor X drone on about the simplest of attacks makes it a chore. To help the game tie in with the movie as much as possible, some stills from the movie are unlockable, and the costumes are hidden. And, the movie's trailer is included on the game's disc. Also, there are a lot of little FMV clips for when you complete training or beat the arcade mode, which, thanks to the game's sketchy AI (it tends to stand on the other side of the screen, gladly accepting projectile after projectile), isn't exactly a difficult feat.

The character models in Mutant Academy have a nice, solid look to them, though the animation looks a little too stiff at times, particularly on the jumping attacks. The backgrounds consist mostly of typical postapocalyptic fare, with some high-tech rooms (such as the ever-popular Danger Room) showing up now and then. The sound is average at best. The game is filled with generic smack, slap, and explosion noises, and the voice work, used for post-match win quotes, is a little on the lame side.

X-Men sticks close to the standard fighting game formula, and as a result, it manages to be fun for a short period of time. However, with the exception of its unique super-move system, it doesn't really have any strong points for or against it. Even fans of the X-Men will be able to get by with a rental.

There aren't enough games about giant monsters, and there definitely aren't enough good ones. Arguably, Twisted Metal: Black developer Incog's latest PlayStation 2 game, War of the Monsters, is the best such game yet. But then, this particular style of game has had precious few brushes with greatness, including Midway's 1986 arcade classic Rampage--and that's probably it. War of the Monsters is a fantastic-looking game that does an excellent job of capturing the appeal of classic movie monsters such as Godzilla and King Kong. But the actual gameplay is simple and somewhat problematic both as a single-player game and as a two-player game. War of the Monsters is still recommendable to anyone with an appreciation for the source material, but aside from its graphics, the game doesn't quite live up to its potential.

War of the Monsters is rather similar to last year's Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee for the GameCube. Like that game, War of the Monsters plays kind of like a fighting game in which you choose one of a number of different gigantic creatures and try to beat the stuffing out of any other creatures that get in your way. And it just so happens that most all of the fighting in War of the Monsters takes place in densely populated urban settings, complete with screaming crowds, and these highly destructible environments are a key part of the action. You'll smash through tall buildings, use sharp objects like radio antennae to impale your foes, and pick up and throw things like police cars, tanks, and helicopters. There are several single-player modes in which you'll take on one dastardly opponent after another--up to three of them at a time, actually. And there are two-player options as well, ranging from a standard versus mode on down to a few throwaway minigames that you'll have to unlock first. Sadly, the game offers no four-player Multitap support, and it doesn't feature online play. These things could have made War of the Monsters a much better, longer-lasting game.

You'll see 10 different monsters on the character select screen, two of which are initially locked away. Though all the monsters are original, they're inspired by the giant monster archetypes of public consciousness: You have your King Kong rip-off, your Godzilla rip-off, two different giant robots, a giant insect, and more. A couple of the guys in the lineup aren't so conventional, such as a stone golem with fire shooting out of its head and Kineticlops, a one-eyed thing made entirely of energy, but they fit in well with all the rest. The single-player "adventure" mode of War of the Monsters also sports several different multiple-stage battles against huge boss monsters, and these too look great. Starting with an alien-invasion intro, a slick presentation gives the game the style of an old drive-in movie or news telecast, and it really works well to accentuate the game's retro theme and characters.

It's easy to pick this game up and start playing. Each monster controls the same way, and while some are noticeably faster or slower than others, and a couple of them have a limited ability to fly, they're really not so different from each other. As any of the monsters, you can execute quick and heavy attacks, as well as reach out and grab whatever's nearby, whether it's a fire truck, a piece of rubble, or another creature, and use it as a projectile. You can block and repel most standard attacks, though the grapples are unblockable, and a few unblockable attacks have been included to prevent players from staying on the defensive for too long. Every monster can jump, climb buildings or other vertical surfaces, shoot a weak but effective projectile of some sort, and perform two types of supermoves--one that damages any opponents in the immediate vicinity, and one that's better for hitting targets from a distance. The properties of each monster's attacks vary somewhat, but all in all, the monsters differ in appearance much more than they do in the way they actually play. You'll wish, then, that there were more monsters to choose from or that they had more to distinguish themselves. Nevertheless, the faster characters, such as Congar the gorilla and Preytor the bug, seem to have a real edge over the competition, as their combos connect more readily and they do a better job of hightailing it out of a dangerous situation so they can recuperate.

What's a fearless giant monster doing hightailing it out of a dangerous situation, you ask? Well, each level in War of the Monsters is filled with power-ups that restore your health, energy (used for shooting, flying, and attacking), and supermoves. So, in stark contrast with the theme of the game, a hasty retreat frequently pays off in War of the Monsters, as you'll quickly learn from the game's vicious yet cowardly computer opponents. Computer-controlled creatures are surprisingly difficult to defeat at the normal difficulty setting. Give one of them a good thrashing, and you'll often see your enemy turn tail and run off. You'll then see the color-coded indicator representing its health turn from red back to green as the no-good beast makes a beeline for all the glowing green health power-ups in the level. You'll learn to use this same tactic yourself, and since health power-ups are plentifully interspersed throughout each level, the net effect is that you'll find yourself playing hide-and-seek nearly as often as you'll actually be fighting. But you know what? King Kong never tried to run.

Dragon Ball Z games have run the quality gamut from terrible to very good. Infinite World lands somewhere in between. There are only three main modes in Infinite World: Dragon Mission, Dragon Duel, and Fighter's Road. Dragon Mission is the game's story mode, taking you through the Z and Dragon Ball GT sagas in a condensing of hundreds of DBZ episodes. This amalgam covers all of the major battles including, those versus Vegeta, Frieza, Cell, Buu, and more.

You guide Goku along an overwold map in order to trigger battles and minigames. You?re also free to replay earlier battles as an easy way to build up your bank account. Extra Zeni (money) can be used to purchase upgrades for you character in the Warrior?s Room shop. Short animated cutscenes from the anime play before and after every boss confrontation and give you an indication of what's going on in the story, but they won't make a great deal of sense if you've never watched the show. The bosses get increasingly difficult as you progress through the story mode, but for the most part they play similarly, and your strategy for taking down two different bosses like Vegeta or Frieza won't differ very much.

A smattering of minigames allow you to experience cherished scenes from the anime such as guiding Goku along Snake Way, capturing Bubbles the monkey, and other memorable moments that don't involve outright combat. Unfortunately, these side minigames are poorly designed and overly simplistic. The mission on Snake Way, for instance, has you running along the winding path moving from checkpoint to checkpoint. Another minigame has you training Goku in your space capsule by hitting a series of button combinations. It may be nice fan service, but these minigames really only serve to bring the combat to a grinding halt without being entertaining enough to justify the interruption.

Dragon Duel is the two-player versus mode in Infinite World. You can fight a friend or computer opponent with any of the game's more than 40 warriors. You have the option of playing as any of the fighters, either without their more powerful skills and attacks or with customized power-ups you can purchase from the Warrior's Room shop. Fighter's Road is a secret mode you can unlock after playing Dragon Mission, pitting you against more than 100 opponents across four maps. It's similar to Dragon Mission mode in that you guide a character from fight to fight on an overworld map, but it also provides you with an opportunity to unlock new warriors and earn more Zeni.

Despite the prevalence of minigames in Dragon Mission mode, Infinite World is still all about the combat. You fly around a battlefield with your opponent and exchange a variety of Ki beam blasts, grapples, and melee combos. You have a healthy variety of attacks, a Ki Burn ability that gives you increased speed and strength for a short period of time in exchange for Ki energy, and the ability to transform into a Super Saiyan. You can speed burst around the battlefield, but you'll have to use it wisely and avoid taking too many hits since they contribute to a fatigue meter. Once the fatigue meter reaches full capacity, it will temporarily stun you, leaving you defenseless against devastating combos and also downgrading you from an advanced form like Super Saiyan back to your default form. Overall, though, the battles are fast paced, the AI is relentless, and winning takes quite a bit of skill and strategy since not effectively evading attacks, Ki charging, or Ki burning will result in an easy defeat.

Those compliments aside, there are a few issues with the battle system. The AI is exceedingly difficult, even at the "Easy" and "Very Easy" difficulty settings. The computer opponents are just as fast and bloodthirsty, no matter what difficulty setting the game is set at. The only differences between easy and hard are how quickly your health depletes, how long it takes to recharge your Ki, and how long you stay fatigued. Still, you will have many fights that challenge your patience and tempt you to chuck your Dual Shock at a nearby wall.

Battles become more manageable when you buy advanced skills and abilities from the Warrior's Room. For each battle in the game--even those that you lose--you will earn Zeni that can be used to buy stronger Ki attacks, items such as Senzu beans that recharge your health in battle, and attributes like Fighter's Body that increase your base health. The system works fine, as long as you edit your character before going into battle and assign those acquired abilities to your few allotted slots.

The problem comes in knowing how to do this and in what abilities to purchase. At one point, Infinite World alerts you that you can purchase things from the Warrior's Room, but it provides no tutorial explaining how the system works or how the abilities benefit you. The Warrior's Room is also located on the main menu, forcing you to leave Dragon Mission mode in order to use the Zeni you earn. At first glance, you wouldn't think the two are so dependent on each other; but when your opponents in Dragon Mission suddenly possess twice as much health and strength the Warrior's Room becomes invaluable.

Infinite World will strike up feelings of deja vu for those who've played DBZ: Budokai 3. That shouldn't come as a surprise since both games were developed by Dimps. Unfortunately for Budokai 3 fans, Infinite World lacks a couple of the best fighting mechanics from its predecessor, namely the Beam Struggles and Dragon Rushes. Those two features were integral in making Budokai 3 a critical success because they helped re-create the intense power struggles that are so central to the drama of the DBZ anime. Considering how much Infinite World feels like a sequel to that game, you will likely get the disappointing feeling that this is a neutered expansion pack.

Infinite World looks as good as any other DBZ game on the PS2. The overworld map is a bit bland, as is the level design in the minigames that are scattered through Dragon Mission. In that battles themselves, though, the colors of the characters, transformations, and Ki blasts are lush and vibrant. The soundtrack is a bit ordinary, but you can choose between the English and Japanese voice tracks that DBZ purists will surely appreciate.

While its budget price may make Infinite World a tempting purchase, previous DBZ games on the PS2 have tread this ground already, and have done so with much more robust fighting systems. You would be better off revisiting Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3, a superior game where the series' fast-paced combat was used to much better effect.

As an action-packed re-creation of the Naruto anime, Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 gets the job done, but as a solid fighter, not so much. This stylish brawler is too heavy on the button mashing and too light on the gameplay options and fighting depth to compete with other fighting games. If you're a fan in desperate need of more portable Naruto brawling, this will suffice, but fighting game purists should look the other way.

Ninja Destiny 2 comes with all the standard fighting game modes--Versus, Survival, and Story--none of which are fun for long. Story mode drags you through hours of meaningless random battles as you run back and forth across the world of Naruto performing lame fetch quests and completing uninspired missions. The story is told through fuzzy stills from the anime and poorly condensed text that summarizes events from the show to the point that only hardcore Naruto fans will be able to follow along after the first few missions.

The other modes fare a bit better because they don't drape boring quests around the bare-bones fighting. In addition to regular melee attacks, each of the 34 fighters has a special move and a couple of combos. The specials are easy to figure out, because they just require a press of the A button. The combos are a lot trickier; there's no move list or chart, which means most of the time you'll happen upon them while mashing on the two attack buttons. There are six slots on the touch screen that hold random power-ups, such as double damage or extra energy, but using them in the heat of battle can be tricky.

The touch-screen "buttons" are unresponsive, sometimes requiring multiple taps to register. Since you have to take your thumbs off the fighting controls to activate them, don't be surprised when you finally activate that extra defense power-up just as your ninja drops dead. These power-ups seem like they would add an extra layer of depth to the fighting, but since they're random, they tend to lead to imbalances and unfair advantages. That's not so bad when you're playing against the computer, but it's a real pain when fighting with friends. There are no options to turn these power-ups off, either. Actually, there aren't many options at all--button mapping, move lists, and power-up explanations are all absent.

What you'll find in place of all the options and deep combat is lush visuals that nail the look and feel of the show. The characters fight fast and fluidly, and their outlandish special moves are over the top and fun to watch. The damage doesn't always match the theatrics, though. It seems a bit odd that a special move that incorporates a massive sand tsunami would do less damage than one in which a couple of paintings are brought to life, but such are the mysteries of the ninja. Story mode, boring though it may be, has a nice look about it, and the wilderness of Naruto's world is brought to life in vivid colors. The only hiccup in the visuals is the unsteady frame rate. Some of the more visually intense characters are too much for the game to handle. The music consists of cheesy rock tracks and nonintrusive background tunes inspired by the show. There are voice clips from all of the characters, but they aren't of the best quality.

If you're not a fan of the show, you'll get all you need from Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Destiny 2 in about as much time as it takes you to finish saying its name. The fighting is serviceable for a little while, and the visuals are nice, but the lack of options, the shallow fighting mechanics, and the tedious Story mode keep this game from fighting game fame. There's no compelling reason to spend time mashing buttons on this one.

Tekken 6 Review