Being a huge fan of the original NES and arcade Ninja Gaiden games, and more recently the entire Dead or Alive series, I was expecting Tecmo's Xbox reincarnation of Ninja Gaiden to be huge. Unfortunately, blindly going into the game having such high expectations was a mistake. From the screenshots, movies and demo, the game definitely looked promising. Soon after the game begins, however, most of the visual beauty takes a back seat to a bad camera and fairly repetitive gameplay.

To be blunt, the camera system in Ninja Gaiden sucks. The game takes place from a 3rd person point of view, and as soon as Ryu start moving forward it's obvious that the camera sits way too low and too far back. Without switching to the 1st person camera view every several seconds it's actually difficult to judge the edge of platforms or see enemies once you travel past a corner. In a tight room or area, the camera attempts to give you the best view possible, but there are always enemy ninjas seemingly falling from the sky right beyond your view or tossing shurikens and shooting arrows/guns at you from off-screen. As soon as you try to re-center the camera and see where the beating is originating from, you end up being surrounded and taking additional damage. The camera has a tendency to just focus on Ryu at the most inopportune moments and frequently you'll be punching/kicking an attacker you can't even see. In other circumstances, objects and the environment itself will obstruct your view as the camera swings around. I seriously believe I spent more time fighting the camera than the enemy ninja. The camera issue is extremely frustrating and is clearly the game's primary shortcoming.

From the few instances where the camera does behave, the gameplay in Ninja Gaiden isn't necessarily bad. Ryu unfortunately has nowhere near the amount of technique he has in Dead or Alive. He can jump, block/dodge, perform a regular attack, a special attack, and a long distance attack. Jumping towards certain walls will result in Ryu either running along or climbing up the wall with the option to perform an attack from that position. Holding down the special attack button charges up a super special attack, which is unleashed upon the release of the button. That attack can be powered up by sucking in the defeated souls of enemies, a la Onimusha. Eventually Ryu finds other weapons and learns additional attacks and techniques such as Ninpo magic. As mentioned earlier, besides attacking from off-screen, enemies will frequently surround Ryu and begin pounding away. Trying to fight out of those situations will frequently end badly, because as soon as one gets a hit in, the others will take some cheap shots. Depending on the weapon, Ryu's 3 or 4 canned combos look pretty exciting and brutal the first few times, though after a short while the enemies begin to block at least half of all your regular attacks. Even with magic, long-range, special attacks and counter-attacks, expect plenty of button mashing action.

Besides the fighting scenes, Ninja Gaiden also contains some minor adventure and puzzle elements. Ryu can find various healing potions, status altering relics, maps, weapons and key-like items. The key items are used to open doors or unlock new areas, and once in a while you'll need to backtrack through previously completed areas to progress through the game. Ryu can also trade some of the enemy captured souls for various items such as potions, Ninpo scrolls, arrows and armor whenever he comes across a shop statue. In the end, the adventure elements are uninvolving and simple and serve merely as a way to help break up the action segments.

As touched on earlier, Ninja Gaiden is a beautiful looking game. It's obvious that Tecmo knows the Xbox hardware well, as most of the environments, animation and effects are gorgeous. The environments are not as interactive as hoped though, with only small, obvious objects such as lanterns, torches and boxes being destructible. Some of the best stages look like they were pulled directly from the Dead or Alive universe. However at one point early in the game, Ninja Gaiden abruptly shifts from a lush feudal Japanese style to a more modern, sterile, mechanized world. The enemies also follow the same pattern. Ninja and undead Samurai warriors give way to gun-toting soldiers and monstrous half-robotic bosses. Later on towards the end, the game takes on a more weird fantasy-like element. There are a few (often confusing) CG and realtime cut-scenes mixed into the game and they are of your typical modern Team Ninja variety. The plot and storytelling totally pale in comparison to Ninja Gaiden 1 on the NES. Which, for its time, was a cinematic masterpiece. Overall, Ninja Gaiden doesn't really stick to the classic Ninja Gaiden formula and style, but it's an attractive game nonetheless.

The soundtrack doesn't really stand out and the limited voice acting is quite forgettable. There are some nice sound effects and ambient tunes here and there, though you'll probably hear more sword clashing effects than anything else in the game.

Besides the standard story mode, Ninja Gaiden has an Xbox Live mode called the Master Ninja Tournament. The mode does not have any type of online gameplay associated with it. It's more of a score-based ranking ladder. The Master Ninja Tournament itself is a worldwide Xbox Live event which will kick off at the E3 with a three-round regional competition that will last through the summer. Xbox Live owners, who have beat the game once, will be eligible to register for any and/or all three rounds of the tournament where they will test their ninja skills by competing in trial missions only available through Xbox Live. This month, players can go online ahead of time to begin practicing. Once the tournament begins, participants will compete against other players within their regions and then will be ranked on their overall scores from these trial missions. A leader board demonstrating the player's overall ranking will be available through Xbox Live so that players can see how they stack up against the competition during each round. Winners are determined by the top rankings in their region for each round. From there the three top players from each region will advance to the regional playoffs where they will compete against each other's scores. The player with the combined best score for all three levels will be flown to the World Master Ninja Finals held in September at X04 in Europe.

If you are an Xbox Live user, the addition of the Master Ninja Tournament should help extend the life of the game to an extent. No online gameplay of any sort is disappointing, and after the tournament itself ends in September, who knows if Tecmo will continue with it.

Ninja Gaiden is just not the Ninja Gaiden I expected. It's overwhelmingly mediocre, not enjoyable to play, and the horrendous camera alone destroys any redeeming factors the game may have. Most PlayStation 2 owners should remember Square's similarly over hyped The Bouncer. I'd almost go as far as proclaiming Ninja Gaiden to be the Xbox equivalent.