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.

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