Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins

"9? 10? How much is Activision paying you people?"

I'm not here to be nice, I'm here to speak the gospel, and I tell you, this game is the DEVIL! Activision should be ashamed of themselves... Better graphics... WHERE?!?! Better voice acting???? In Ayane's case, that's a bold faced lie. I don't remember ninja assassins being whiny-sounding preppie schoolgirls. She wouldn't have made it THIS far with a voice and attitude like that. Traditional my a**... there's nothing traditional about it! Which brings me to my next question. You glory boys with your perfect ten scores... have you even PLAYED the first one? Maybe that's the one you thought you were reviewing.

Graphics=7/10

They look about the same to me as the first. The reason this score is lower than the review I gave for the first game is because of the same reason. They look basically the same. What, you think daylight levels and broader field of vision compensate for the wolf tale they told regarding the improved visuals? Not from where I'm standing...

Sound=4/10

Oh HATAAAAH! Professional caliber voice acting? In a bull's eye! Woptie doo. I didn't buy this game for the voice acting... and you lost even more points for Ayane's voice acting!!!

Control=7/10

Close to the original, yet oddly it feels a little sluggish. Maybe it's me... maybe it's my controller... maybe it's just this sorry game.

Fun Factor=7/10

Well, then... if I hate the game, why the high score in this section? I'm glad you asked! Now despite all the short comings of this game, there's one feature that sticks out above the muck that is the rest of the game... the Mission Editor. Now I wasn't at the meeting at Activision when they made level editors mandatory for their games, but I'm glad they did this time. After all, I paid for this wasted CD, gotta be SOMETHING I can do with it to justify the purchase... well Mission Editor is that something. Tired of the silly ho-hum stages that pass as levels in the game? Why not make your own? Surely you can do better than these people did.

Replayability=?/10

Well, that depends... if you're drunk, homicidal, or just plain stupid, you'll give this game a 10, or even crazier, you'll swear by the bible that it's better than the first. Or if you actually posses something we like to call common sense, you'll see this game for what it really is, a bad remake of the first, with attempts to make PS2-like improvements on PS1 hardware. Face it, folks... the Mission Editor is the only real star here, and even that will bore you after a while. They should have sold that separately, as a ''Tenchu Game Generator.'' Would have sold much more, I'm sure. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna read some more of these ridiculous reviews.

''Boron is unbeatable!!! Boron is smelly... but at least this game stinks as much as Boron does!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!''

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/10/01, Updated 09/10/01