Online Hurricane

Do you see dead and beheaded people, with the arterial spraying and so forth? If so, odds are you’ve been playing Ninja Gaiden®, Team Ninja’s action masterpiece. Odds also are that you’ve been occasionally doing serious damage to your controller, as you toss it against the wall with unbridled frustration. Well, you’d better get that sucker wrapped up in preparation for the first Ninja Gaiden Xbox Live™ download. The Hurricane pack is going to up the ante with tougher enemies, new costumes, a new weapon, and a new camera system that makes the platforming elements more manageable.

So, why am I having nightmares?

That big new stick is called “Lunar.”

It’s late at night, and I’m sound asleep. I’m having that weird dream again, where I’m still living in my parents’ basement. For some reason, the chick who plays Kiefer Sutherland’s daughter on 24, John Kerry, and a talking version of my childhood dog Duffy stop by for a game of poker. Then, there’s an earthquake and … swoosh … thwip … sking! A dark, mysterious figure lands in the middle of the room.

Presidential figure, TV hottie, and vociferous canine disappear into the shadows, leaving only a scowling, deadly looking dude in a red-and-black suit of armor, clutching a razor-sharp spear and doing that Laurence Fishburne “come get some” thing with one hand. “You thoughtNinja Gaiden was difficult before, and you only played through on Normal, you pathetic child,” the figure says. “The Hurricane is going to own you.”

Then, he lifts his hand and draws back his mask … revealing Luke Skywalker! I wake up screaming.

Giant hybrids with double-ended clubs.

Yes, the Hurricane pack is on the way, and like a battered abuse victim that can’t help but come crawling back to his abuser, I fully intend to download it and enter the second round of the Master Ninja Tournament. What scares me about it? Well, along with the fact that my whole family was killed by ninjas in the great ninja invasion of ’75, there are a few more details that make me shake like my old roommate Malcolm before he got his first beer of the morning.

This is gonna hurt.

• Harder than ever before. So, everyone’s playing on Normal, huh? Well, Team Ninja’s going to make Normal the new Hard, which I guess makes Hard into Very Hard, and Very Hard the setting where the game actually hops out of the Xbox, flies around the room like Tron deadly discs, destroys your home, and ticks off your landlord.
• More enemies, newer enemies. So, rumor has it the brown ninjas—the only things in the game even close to being the kind of cannon fodder than can make half-men like me feel good about their skills—are toast. Now, the white ninjas are the brown ninjas, and the black freakin’ Spider Clan ninjas are the white ninjas, which means you’re fighting those ^%$#@! in the first level of the game.

As if the black spider ninjas weren’t evil enough.

• New, deadlier weapon. Okay, this one doesn’t scare me that much, but come on, man, I finally figured out how to swing the Dragon Sword without cutting of my own thumbs! Now, I have to learn to stick fight, too?
• That red and black costume … and what I’m going to have to do to get it. Oh, so there are two new costumes, eh, Team Ninja? Cool. Now I’ll be able to … finish the game … again … with the all-new difficulty … to wear them? And, one of them makes me look like I’m wearing a face-hugger and a Farscape costume? Hell, sign me up!
• Getting sucked right back in like Michael Corleone. That really is the root of my anxiety. Goodbye life. So long going to movies. Adios free time, deadlines, girlfriends, and eating. Ninja Gaiden is going to own my time all over again—and I’m going to love it.
  
  It’s a scary kind of love …

By Cory Herndon