Team Ninja has been around since 1995, and has always been at the forefront of fast-paced fighting titles. Through its immensely successful Dead or Alive series, and more recently with Ninja Gaiden, Team Ninja continually seeks to push the boundaries and is renowned for over-the-top graphics and attention to detail.

We reviewed Ninja Gaiden II back in June, and we still maintain that you're not going to be able to find a better ninja combat game out there now. There's so much to like about action titles that put you in the thick of combat and require you to really hone your skills in order to survive.

So what is it that makes Ninja Gaiden II such an explosive title? We fired a few questions their way - and to our astonishment the entire team took the time to reply!

Gameplanet's awesome Ninja Gaiden II giveaway came to a close last Friday, and earlier today we drew a total of six winners.

Five entrants have won a copy of the game for the Xbox 360, and one lucky winner has won the main prize consisting of one-of-a-kind Ryu Hayabusa Xbox 360 Elite, a copy of Ninja Gaiden II, and a superb Samsung 32" LCD TV!

 

Xbox NZ decided to bypass convention early yesterday morning, delivering copies of Ninja Gaiden II to reviewers and members of the press using a real ninja!

Throughout Auckland, offices echoed with the sound of startled cries and blood-curdling screams, as the eagerly awaited Xbox exclusive ninja title was distributed via. roundhouse kick and spinning back fist.

We've attached some pictures below, taken by concerned bystanders as the ninja weaved a path of destruction, and disappeared almost as quick as he'd arrived!

 

You have to hand it to Microsoft. Sure, they might make questionable hardware from time to time, and occasionally release operating systems with thousands of known bugs, but if you ignore that for a second and focus on their marketing skills, you can't help but admit that they know what they're doing.

Ninja Gaiden II is a case in point. Not only are we looking at what will almost certainly be the best ninja title conceived to date, it's only going to be available on the Xbox 360. Consider just for a second what type of leverage you have to have to score an exclusive blockbuster ninja title, coded in Japan largely by Japanese developers, for a console that doesn't have Sony stamped on it. No matter what you think of Microsoft, that's impressive.

At Gameplanet, we happen to think a lot of Microsoft, namely due to their fantastic habit of dropping off preview code for some of their upcoming titles. You can achieve a whole new level of smugness when playing a game that only a handful of people worldwide have even seen, and if you resist the temptation to edit mistakes on Wikipedia you can get a huge head start and a fantastic appreciation of the game before it's even released. So when Ninja Gaiden II appeared one afternoon this week, we didn't require much encouragement to fire up the preview disk and attack the first chapter.

Ninja Gaiden II has gone gold, Microsoft and Team NINJA announced today. The blockbuster sequel will be hitting NZ store shelves on 12th June, exclusively for Xbox 360. Two new trailers have also been released; see below.

The game features a new engine developed "from the ground up" by Team NINJA and legendary video game developer Tomonobu Itagaki.

In Ninja Gaiden II, gamers must guide Ryu Hayabusa on a mission to avenge his clan and (of course) prevent the destruction of the human race. Armed with an assortment of ninja weaponry, players must help Ryu skillfully maneuver through "a world fraught with peril". The game will feature a new auto-health regeneration system, levels, adventures, enemies and thrilling combat, representing "a true evolution of the highly popular franchise."