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One can’t help but feel a speck of discomfort knowing that one of the most anticipated games of the year is sitting right in front of your two visually impaired eyeballs, yet you’re allowed only so much time to play it before you realize that you’ve barely even scratched the surface. Such is the way of not being able to have a debug unit to call our own, as we’re sure many other reputable Indian sites are fully aware. Leaving that aside, Ren and I, along with another accompanying journalist who wished to be anonymous in regards to this write-up and thus shall here forth be christened “Dinobot”, were invited to Microsoft India’s office in Gurgaon to fool around with a review code of Lionhead Studios’s Action RPG Fable II – which, by the time you read this, should be available in stores today.
Rather than trying to speed-run through the game’s main storyline, Ren and I felt it was best to get ourselves acquainted with the large, open world you’re presented with right after awakening from the initial training you’ll go through as a young pup. Options abound everywhere you go. You could take up various odd jobs, pose for a sculptor, rummage through dungeons in search of loot with your canine companion, or be a complete douche bucket and beat the townsfolk into a bleeding pulp (Dinobot was principally fond of this activity). But one feature all of us were pretty keen on trying was to raise a family. And if having babies meant having to engage in some sex practices of the polygonal variety, hey, no objections here. Alas, little did we know how much work was really required to get things rolling.
(Note: Spoilers!)
About a week ago, Xbox 360 Fanboy reported info regarding the next Forza Motorsport – thanks to a leaked survey from Intellisponse – and that the acclaimed racing series could possibly be shipped on 2 Dual-Layered DVDs – thanks to the bevy of new stuff likely being added (400 cars! 100 tracks! Driving Assist!). Well, one of our sources – thanks to a bit of snooping around Dhruva Interactive – claims that this may not necessarily happen in the long run.
Five minutes.
That’s all it took for me to realize how much I sucked at Ninja Gaiden II. It doesn’t matter how many excuses I could think of to justify dying so quickly and so embarrassingly. “Well, it has been a while since I last played the Xbox original,” I muttered to myself. Right, that was soothing. I should also go on and mention how the sun was in my eye, the check was in the mail, and how the ninja dogs ate my homework. Whatever. Bottom line was, Team Ninja’s grand follow-up to one of the best Action games of 2004 was standing in front of my face, every bit as punishing as it’s predecessor ever was to newcomers and softies. And really, no self-respecting fan would have it any other way.
When Microsoft India’s Sanjoy John gave us the OK to come on over to his office in Gurgaon to give us our Ninja Re-Education Classes, two things became quickly apparent to myself and Reggie. Firstly, nothing was going to get in our way of experiencing Mr. Itagaki’s latest hacker-slasher. Not over-priced shady parking lot “services”, not the blazing heat beating our foreheads like an engineered oven-bazooka, nadda. We had to get our hands dirty, no matter the cost and humiliation. The second thing that became quickly apparent was the fact that we needed someone who was more than experienced in the ways of the Hayabusa clan. Fortunately, we had just the right person: Ren Miranda, Reggie’s younger brother. The pieces were in place and it was go-time.