Somewhere in my house there’s an excellent book called Difficult Questions About Video Games. It’s a collection of testimony from players and designers and it covers all kinds of fascinating things. I remember – I have to remember this; I have no idea where I left the book – that it starts with a bit about Tomb Raider. Someone’s playing the first game in the series in front of an audience and mentions that the controls are really “fluid”. Someone else in the audience then asks what “fluid” means, and…and nobody can pin it down at all.
Ninja Gaiden 2 BlackPublisher: Koei Tecmo GamesDeveloper: Koei Tecmo GamesPlatform: Played on XboxAvailability: Out now for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass
I’m in a similar situation with Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, which has just shadow dropped, rather appropriately, on Game Pass. This updating of a 2008 classic feels absolutely incredible, and yet – I’m far from an expert on most things, and Ninja Gaiden falls well within “most things” in this case – I’m almost powerless to express why.
Here’s something that occurred to me almost immediately. I remembered suddenly that in the old days of video game mags every review would have one paragraph at minimum about the controls – how they felt, how responsive they were, what they brought to the game. There was an understanding that a game is its controls to a large degree – it’s where a lot of the personality of a game is found.
Over the years I suspect I’ve fallen into a state where I tend to notice the controls most when they are very bad, or when they’re trying to do something specific. Remember how heavy Gears of War felt when it came out? I can still remember being slightly shocked and awed by the roadie run, which gave you full pelt movement but limited steering. It reinforced the fact that you were basically playing as someone as nimble as a rhinoceros, but I noticed that at least. It cut through. There was no doubting the developers’ intentions. Ninja Gaiden’s very different, of course. It’s trying to create a sensation of speed and whispery lightness, an air of nimble mastery. And so I spent yesterday afternoon messing around in the game’s first level trying to work out how it does this.