Xeogred wrote:
Yeah Shinobi was very different. You ever play it's spiritual successor, Nightshade? I hear it's similar, so that can only be a good thing. It's been years since I've played Shinobi, definitely going to have to pick that one up again and Nightshade sometime.
And I will agree that I liked Arkham Asylum's combat a ton. Very, very satisfying. It's hilarious compared to GoW you're swinging around all these huge weapons cutting things apart... but it felt absolutely nothing like the sheer intense brutality of the Bat's fists. Haha. Also, although the first game had horrendous combat, I thought Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood did it pretty well... fairly similar to Arkham Asylum with the countering and timing on things, but it was hilariously awesome how brutal and violent the kills are in AC.
But yeah, you ever play Ninja Blade? That's an example of how I like my action games, one of the only Japanese-esque ones I can think of this gen... and well I guess DMC4. As for Ninja Gaiden 2 I don't have much to say about that one, I don't know what happened as I loved the first game to death, but 2 was a huge letdown to me for some reason. Didn't really dig it. I don't even think it was the difficulty, I just remember it felt so rough and unpolished compared to the first game and had some of the worst camera angles ever, something that never bothered me in the first game.
I had a love hate thing with NG 2. You bring up a lot of its flaws, but the fast action and brutal kills still appealed to me. I cursed that game a lot and still ended up spending a lot of time with it. NG 1 was definitely better though. I've heard of Ninja Blade. It looks interesting, but reactions to it were so mixed I didn't know what to think of it. People made it sound like one big QTE fest. I'm sure it's dirt cheap now though so I may check it out at some point . I do want to play Nightshade one of these days, definitely
You know what was cool about Batman: Arkham Asylum? The game basically turned into an old school, arcade beat'em up in the combat challenge rooms. You had two goals in those challenge rooms. You had to get the highest score and you had to stay alive. Getting the highest score meant pulling off long combos, mixing up your attacks and getting hit as little as possible, if at all. You had to fight perfectly in some of them and that is when the game's combat system becomes a thing of beauty, not when you're just watching someone button mash their way through story mode while whiffing counters and taking hits. Some of the combat rooms just threw hordes of enemies at you along with big hulking brutes and guys going for guns to use against you. It was intense and I really felt at times that I was being pushed to my limits as I was not only trying to survive, but trying to maintain enough focus to keep up my score as well! Plus, the Joker taunting you AND his thugs throughout all of those challenges was awesome. One of my favorites taunts is when he says something along the lines of, "Wait, what's that I see? Are you actually bleeding Bats?"
