Ninja Gaiden was one of the most exciting and interesting action games to come out in the last generation of consoles, mixing fighting game mechanics with Devil May Cry-like action and an excellence that few games can touch. While Ninja Gaiden II didn't manage to live up to the quality of the first game, it still combined fast-paced action and slick, stylish moves. It's not surprising that a few other games would attempt to match the action-ninja gameplay that Ninja Gaiden perfected. Ninja Blade is the latest attempt, this time from Armored Core and Otogi developer, From Software. In order to get a feel for this game, we sat down with a brief demo, which will be hitting Xbox Live next week.

The demo began us in the skies above Tokyo, in the year 2015. According to the brief story blurb, a mysterious race of beings called the Alpha Worms has been discovered on Earth, and they have the power to mutate living beings into Carriers, infected zombie-like humans. The Alpha Worms have shown up in Tokyo, and the only hope to stop them is a group of elite superninjas armed with mystical swords, and they're the city's only hope against the encroaching menace. There's no real explanation for why ninjas are required instead of say, soldiers with guns and bazookas, but asking too many questions about the plot is clearly not something that Ninja Blade encourages. Your main character is one of the ninjas, a seemingly young but experienced warrior by the name of Ken, and the demo begins by having him leap sans parachute from a plane into the infested city of Tokyo, putting you right in the middle of the monster-slaying action.

It's going to be pretty much impossible to play Ninja Blade without comparing it to Ninja Gaiden. Even if you ignore the fact that both games star basically identical black-clad ninjas, the gameplay is also exceptionally similar. As I jumped into the game, I was pretty surprised to find that a lot of my basic Ninja Gaiden skills translating over to Ninja Blade. The basic controls are quite similar, with the X button performing rapid attacks and the Y button used for strong attacks. Used in conjunction, they offer up a bunch of various combos, both in the air and on the ground. The A button is used to jump; the right trigger allows you to dash around, which can be used to dodge attacks or held down to move faster; and the left trigger blocks attacks. In the demo, we only had one ninjitsu, the cyclone shuriken; pressing the B button once causes the shuriken to whip around Ken quickly, knocking away any nearby enemies and blowing out fires. Holding the B button allows you to charge and aim the shuriken, so you can throw it at a target much like the bow and arrow in Ninja Gaiden.

Your ninja, Ken, has the special gimmick of carrying multiple swords at once in a special glowing sheath. In the demo, we had three distinct swords. The Oni-Slayer Blade is our default sword, and its medium speed and power mean that it's a solid average weapon, with no special strengths or weaknesses. The second weapon is the Stonerender Sword, which isn't fast but is incredibly powerful. It moves like a snail but hits like a truck, so anything in its path gets crushed. Its strong attacks are charge moves that clear out enemies around you, rather than something to mix into a combo. The Twin Falcon Knives are your fast weapon, and they have a huge range because you can detach the blade from the hilt, so they function much like Kratos' Blades of Athena. They're fast and great for combos, especially when you're surrounded by enemies, but they're not very good against anything durable. You can switch between any of the three weapons at will, so Ken can customize his combat capability to fit any situation.

The opening sequence in combat has you battling a group of Carriers. Once we tore them apart, a tremendous Scolex Worm burst through the side of the building and started chasing us outside. This sequence was basically a platformer, although a very easy one. Holding the right trigger allowed us to dash forward, and pressing it against a wall while dashing allowed us to wall-run over gaps. There are also a few hanging poles that you can grab on to and swing from, all of which is very reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden's platforming sequences, although the ones in Ninja Blade are far more forgiving. It isn't even possible to fall into the pits, and the only way to die is to linger long enough for the worm to catch up with you. Afterward, Ken leaps off the building, and you get to play a mini-game where you run down the side of the building. You can choose to dodge enemies or hit them for extra points, but for the purposes of the demo, the best tactic was to hold down the A button to move as quickly as possible and avoid all the foes.

Finally, we encountered the first major boss of the game, the Arachne, which is a tremendous spider that Ken calls a "Class Five Carrier," implying that it's a major foe. We begin on a long platforming sequence, with the spider sending bursts of energy at Ken. We had to jump and dodge to get within striking distance, but once we reached Arachne, the actual fight was pretty simple. Arachne shot fireballs and attempted to crush Ken with one of its tremendous legs, so we'd just whale on the leg until it fell apart. Take out enough legs, and Arachne's face falls into range, so you can do some major damage to it. After enough damage, it moves to another position, but the battle remains pretty much the same. Dodge the leg, hit the face, and repeat until it falls apart. The fight was fairly enjoyable but very short and easy, so there wasn't much involved with taking down the giant spider. Once we did, the game had us finish it off with a lengthy God of War-style interactive Quick Time Event.

Ninja Blade loves having you press buttons during Quick Time Events. The demo begins with a Quick Time Event, followed by a brief combat scene, another QTE, another brief scene where you run away from a boss, followed by, you guessed it, another QTE. Once you reach the boss, each segment of the boss fight is bookended by a QTE, and the demo ends with yet another QTE. It's honestly almost ridiculous, especially for such a short demo, that I spent more time doing QTEs than actually playing the game. The events had almost no punishment for failure, so if you screw one up, the screen turns gray and rewinds to before you failed the event, and you get to do it again. The only time that failing an event had a downside is during the boss fight, where messing up causes you to get knocked back so have to run back up to the boss again. I'm not one of those gamers who absolutely hates QTEs, and I can deal with them in reasonable amounts, such as in Resident Evil 4 or God of War, but Ninja Blade went above and beyond.

Ninja Blade has the potential to be a fairly fun Ninja Gaiden clone. The combat is fast and flows smoothly, although it is a bit difficult to judge the actual difficulty or gameplay from the extremely brief demo. The sword-switching mechanic hints at some potentially interesting concepts, although the demo was designed so that you could switch to the
Stonerender Sword and get by without any trouble. The most worrying thing is the sheer number of QTEs in the game. When you spend more time watching the demo than playing it, one can't help but be a bit concerned that From Software may have overdone it. Hopefully, the final game will be more fighting and less watching, but the demo really could have used more of the former and a lot less of the latter.

In the PlayStation 3 exclusive Killzone 2, players take the fight to the red-eyed Helghast, invading their barren home planet of Helghan to try and capture the warmongering leader Emperor Scolar Visari.

It is, on its surface, a big ball of science fiction and video game cliches, but what first-person shooter isn't? What matters here isn't whether Killzone 2 tells a compelling story, but whether it delivers on nearly four years of promises. Four years of expectations stoked by glimpses of incredible graphics, deep gameplay and barely mentioned multiplayer.

Can Killzone 2 live up to its unspoken promise and deliver a game that not only sells, but sells systems?

Loved
Graphics: Graphically, this is one of the most impressive games I've played to date. Every scene, every moment of Killzone 2 is teeming with detail and nuance, from the drift of smoke, to discarded shells, to the flecks of concrete that pop off when you shoot a wall. And it's not about just the intricately detailed scenery, it's also about the artistic flair of Helghast's design. The lighting, the architecture, the landscapes all do a masterful job of capturing the oppressive ambiance of the game's undertones.

Entrancing Set Pieces: The experience of playing Killzone 2 ping-pongs between the ordinary and the sublime. There were moments when I paused in mid-play to take in what was happening around me. I wasn't just playing out a predetermined role, triggering events by pushing forward, I was engrossed in a battle—bullets zipping by, friends and foe falling on either side. The intensity, the mayhem of war, perfectly captured. It is at those moments that Killzone 2 is fully realized, when it delivers not a single-player experience, but an experience that despite its solitary nature, makes you are part of something larger. You aren't the hero in this game, you're one of the grunts and it's just as likely that any one of you will die.

Level Design: The levels almost all take place in dark locations with muddled, mild colors. But despite the outward sameness of some of their design, they offer an eclectic range of challenges for experienced gamers. Instead of having players charge across a rolling battlefield, working to get from one end to the other, Guerrilla Games made sure to keep players on their toes through skilled level design.

Story: Killzone 2 isn't a game you buy for its plot, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying the relatively light touch of a well-written story sketched across the game's campaign. When the end does finally come, it delivers a subtle look at the complexity of morality in war, without getting too heavy-handed.

Pacing: Killzone 2 is a tightly-paced shooter that walks gamers through an eclectic mix of levels in an experience that comes in at just under eight hours. But it's also another one of those games that, because of its relatively short length and its perfect pacing, can feel more like a movie or a book than a game.

Multiplayer Experience: As much as I enjoyed Killzone 2's campaign, it pales in comparison to the multiplayer experience. The game's 32-player matches includes seven classes, each with two unlockable abilities, five modes and support for four 4-player squads in a team. You also get clan support and the ability to replay your battles in a top-down 2D map on the official website battle replays. It's quickly become my favorite online game.

Multiplayer Map Design: The game's included eight multiplayer maps are some of the best I've played. Not only do they sprawl both horizontally and vertically, but they are packed with clutter, buildings, wreckage, all of which you can climb up and through. The myriad of hiding spots and routes adds a much welcome level of depth to game sessions.

Hated
Load Screen Hiccups: It's certainly no deal breaker, really more of an annoyance, but the game tends stick for just a second or so whenever it hits a loading spot. The longest I noticed lasted about three seconds.

Extremely Long Unlocks: I love, absolutely love the multiplayer gaming, and I'm OK with earning unlocks in a shooter, but Killzone 2's unlock system may turn off those who want to dabble and not grind. To unlock your first new weapons, you start with two main to choose from, you have to rank up to Sergeant 1st Class by earning 200 points. To unlock the first new class you have to earn a total of 350. To unlock the scout you need to earn 2,800 points and then to unlock their second ability you need to kill quite a few people while cloaked.

It's easy when playing a game in an over-saturated genre, like first-person shooters, to judge the title not by what it is, but by what it isn't. Too often, games concentrate more on separating themselves from the pack then on delivering a solid experience.

But Killzone 2 avoids that trap, ignoring the temptation of gimmick and instead wading into the thick of things and proving that you don't have to be unique to deliver an engaging experience.

Despite its minor shortcomings, Killzone 2 is a must-have for any owner of a PlayStation 3. It shows what the system can do and delivers a multiplayer experience rarely seen on the system. The single-player campaign is short, but enjoyable, and from my time with multiplayer, it's a game I'll be playing for quite a while.

Killzone 2 was developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It was released on Feb. 27 for $59.99. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple battles on the PlayStation Network against other players.