TGS: Ninja Gaiden 2

With the last of the bunch sent packing, Ryu puts his trusty scythe back on his back and cycles through the available weaponry. Without too much intimate knowledge of what's in store, we can tell there's a handful at least, with dual swords eventually plucked from the inventory. Running headlong into a fruit and veg market, the scene's set for even greater levels of manic destruction. You might imagine smashed canvas canopies, busted up crates, and mashed fruit, Stranglehold-style, but the levels of environmental destruction are strangely minimal. You see a few items of fruit scattered around after Ryu's special attack, but that's about it.

Interacting with some sort of statue head, your energy is restored, but it's not clear whether this also checkpoints your progress. Clearly the demo man is far too good at the game to die. With some sort of fireball attack selected, Ryu then sets about blasting all-comers with these hot blasts of death, showing off the nifty flame effects in the process. Facing off against a gun-wielding, acrobatic death troupe, it's hardly surprising to see that the gigantic swishing scythe wins out despite Ryu being shot while prone on the ground. With a massive flame special attack unleashed on the remaining unfortunates, it's amusing to note the collective "Arrrrrrrrrrgh"s as the perish in a dance of fiery death.

And the hits keep on coming. Now faced with rocket launcher-wielding enemies, Ryu ducks, rolls, impales, slices, lunges, and eventually takes the remainder down with a ball of unavoidable flaming retribution. What he's angry about we can only speculate. Maybe someone cussed his mum? Maybe he couldn't get his new mobile phone to act as a modem while trying to connect his laptop to the Internet while stranded thousands of miles away in a Tokyo hotel, with only a swearing lunatic for company? Modern life has unique, unforeseen pressures.

The next thing you know, two giant winged demons decide to intervene. Replete with lanky swagger, you'd think the fight was all over bar the demented screaming, what with their purple breath of death and all. But these unreasonable assailants clearly hadn't reckoned on Ryu's patented whirling blade of death attack. To be fair, who could anticipate that? All that extensive training in Hell's Dojo clearly didn't prepare these giant winged beasties, and so it's off with their lithe black-skinned limbs, and an enviable street cleaning job for the folk tasked with cleaning up the sticky green blood now messing up the stone paving. I bet it stinks as well. Despite this, they fight on to the end, with another two suckers joining the merry throng. In mere seconds Ryu has reduced the pair of them to kneeling corpses with his claw attack, and a blizzard of improbable Ninja skills finishes off the straggler. One thing this game definitely doesn't lack is impact. This is brutal stuff, and the lizardy detail on these winged bastards is absolutely incredible. Top marks, chaps.

Running into a area surrounded by tall stone pillars we reach the climax of this ten minute video. With a magnificent fountain the centrepiece of this (boss?) location, we get a close-up of Ryu's leather boots, and the approaching rumble of an unseen giant. Leaping spectacularly into the fray, this bug eyed behemoth looks pissed off. Who wouldn't? He's just heard that 70 of his mates have been slain by a scythe wielding git. Breathing halitosis and readying his insect arms for battle, this nine-eyed bug freak roars in fury, towering over the relatively diminutive figure of Ryu. With blade raised, the scene fades, and it's time to ponder over what Ninja Gaiden II has in store for us when it emerges exclusively on Xbox 360 in 2008. Maybe now the Japanese will finally dig deep into their pockets and spend their yen on what Team Ninja promises will be "the world's premier action game."