ninja

The ninja squad strikes fear into your heart

- Sheylara 20 Comments

The Goonfather tells me that kunoichi (female ninja) always have hair dangling down the sides of their faces. So, for yesterday’s ninja patrol, I let down one side of my hair.

[Kunoichi wannabe]

I know the hair clip is a little unglam but my hair refuses to stay up otherwise.

Then again, who says hair clips are unglam? Kuchiki Byakuya from Bleach has like 10,000 clips on his head.

[Kuchiki Byakuya the dreamboat]

I used to hate Byakuya because I thought he looked faggoty plus he was so evil. But he started getting cooler and cooler in the later episodes and his Bankai is so super cool, so now I love him. But that’s beside the point, so let’s get back to topic.

We started our patrol at Rivervale Mall at 12 pm.

Rivervale Mall is a ghost town, even at 12 pm, so we headed straight for the food court. In Singapore, you can always find people in a food court during lunch hour, even in the most godforsaken corners of the country.

[The lunch crowd lost its appetite]

Our instructions were: “Don’t give the flyers to children below 18 (Ninja Gaiden II is rated M18) and old aunties.”

That left us practically no one to give our flyers to, because RM seems to only stock that species of humans.

So we descended upon the small smattering of harmless old uncles, making them spurt their coffee out in shock at being confronted by dubious-looking aliens from mysterious planets.

That was mildly fun.

We left the building half an hour before time because we ran out of people to shock.

We figured that Temasek Polytechnic would have more likely victims for us to terrorise.

[The ninja patrol squad goes to school]

We were quite right.

The bridge alone yielded an unlimited number of victims.

[The ninja patrol squad camps the bridge]

I tried to emulate Ryu Hayabusa’s meditative posture, but I think I just succeeded in looking silly.

[Pretend meditation]

Which inspired everyone to get silly. We spent 10 minutes fooling around, allowing lucky victims to pass us by unmolested.

[Pretend ninja]

[Pretend ninja]

[Nobody told her the banner was upside down

With our sacred mission successfully completed, it was time for us to leave the place.

Because cost-cutting is a fashionable activity these days, the ninja management decreed that we had to take public transport like regular peons, so we trooped down to the TP bus stop to wait for a bus.

Except that we were so untrained in the skill of taking public transport that we tried to flag a bus from the wrong direction.

[Ninja taking bus

But we still managed to arrived unscathed at Tampines Mall, our final stop for the day.

[People people people!

[People people people!

I was so tired by that time, but I remained professional and continued to display my glazed kunoichi stare.

We also entertained a stunned crowd with our leet ninja skillz.

[Ryu Hayabusa was tired after standing all day

[The ninja patrol squad strikes

[The ninja patrol squad strikes again

Everyone broke into applause because they were so impressed by our death-defying stunts.

We must have sold a zillion copies of Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 on this day.

Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?

Two ninja girls escorting Ryu Hayabusa

- Sheylara 11 Comments

YES! Today is the day!

The Ninja Gaiden II month-long launch campaign starts today (technically yesterday but today is more fun) and I’m going to be somersaulting around Singapore in my ninja costume.

[Ryu Hayabusa in Ninja Gaiden II]

I wish.

Only the ninja costume bit is true. I have yet to master the art of somersaulting. Maybe not in this life.

There will be three of us, one Ryu Hayabusa and two ninja girls, scaring members of an unsuspecting public with our creepy all-black ninja costumes as we patrol our designated routes performing the unglamorous job of giving out flyers.

That’s about all we’ve been trained to do. They rejected my proposal to fly us to Japan to master the deadly art of ninjitsu. I guess there wasn’t enough time.

I’ll reveal the “secret” locations of our appearances in a while.

I just want to talk a bit about the launch campaign.

Pre-order sales of the Xbox 360 version of the game started yesterday at gaming stores around Singapore.

[Ninja Gaiden II for Xbox 360]

All pre-ordered copies come with a gift (or three). The exciting part is that you get more gifts if more people pre-order the game!

If the presale figure falls between 1 and 500, everyone will get a Ninja Gaiden II t-shirt.

[Ninja Gaiden II t-shirt]

501 to 1000, you get a t-shirt and a note book.

[Ninja Gaiden II t-shirt] [Ninja Gaiden II notebook]

Over 1000 and Xbox Singapore is giving out a t-shirt and a note book and a special Ninja Gaiden II console skin for the Xbox 360!!!

[Ninja Gaiden II t-shirt] [Ninja Gaiden II notebook] [Ninja Gaiden II Xbox 360 skin]

Read about it at the Xbox NG2 site if you want. If you can’t be bothered, just remember this:

Pre-order Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 from May 1 to 25 to get cool NG2 premiums. Collect your game and gifts on June 3 at Funan the IT Mall.

That’s all!

Okay, I’ll now reveal our secret appearance locations for today only.

7pm—8pm: Suntec City (basement food court; e-life; Balaclava)

9pm—10pm: Clarke Quay bridge

11pm—12mn: Cineleisure

Please do not come and laugh at us.

There will be more appearances next week and next next week. Will update again.

I played Ninja Gaiden 2 in Microsoft’s office

- Sheylara 17 Comments

Ninja Gaiden fanboys are probably gonna want my blood for this, but I hope they will wait patiently for the game’s release in June. That game’s gonna satisfy all bloodlust, I assure you!

Here’s a photo of me playing Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360 in a small office room in Microsoft:

[Sheylara plays Ninja Gaiden 2]

Well…

That’s all I can photograph. Haha. I wasn’t allowed to photograph or film the game, but that’s nothing new since we all know that Team Ninja enjoys weaving its shroud of secrecy and Microsoft enjoys playing along with that.

So, here’s another photo showing the same thing. *lol*

[Sheylara plays Ninja Gaiden 2 again]

I have to be very honest. I’ve never played any of the prequels, so I quite sucked at playing NG2.

But I’ve watched the Goonfather play Ninja Gaiden. I enjoyed watching the blood and gore fly fast and furious and I enjoyed laughing at him when he got pwned or when he fell down trying to scale impossibly tall walls.

The Goonfather hates me for getting to play the game instead of him. Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, the Goonfather is immensely jealous that he doesn’t get to play the game because he is a #1 Ninja Gaiden fanboy.

Actually, he’s a #1 fanboy of countless games. He’s so greedy. But it kinda helps me because whenever I don’t want him to bug me, I’ll just have to remind him gently, “Hey, Zhao Yun is waiting for you in Dynasty Warriors,” and he’ll be like OMG OKTHXBYE.

It’s great having a gamer partner.

Back to Ninja Gaiden. I love Ryu Hayabusa! He’s so so so cool!! I have a ninja fetish, don’t you know?

[Ryu Hayabusa in Ninja Gaiden 2]

The version we got to play in the Microsoft office was the almost complete build. Ninja Gaiden 2 opens with Ryu Hayabusa on the roof of a building in Sky City Tokyo. It is late in the night and he’s set upon immediately by black-clad men.

That really proved a challenge to me because Ryu is also in black (although his arms are bare, unlike his foes).

Because the action is so fast, I would fight halfway and lose track of Ryu and then I’m just mashing buttons not knowing where I am and whether I’m doing the hitting or being the hittee.

Told you I never play before lah!

But it was really fun and it gave me a thrill to get multiple hits in a row and see the blood spray. Yeah, yeah, bloodthirsty.

We get sticker name tags when we visit Microsoft. So cool!

[Name tag]

I was at Microsoft to get briefed on the Ninja Gaiden 2 launch campaign, which will involve me dressing up as a ninja. Cool or not?! Shhh, don’t tell people. It’s a secret!

So, while we were there, we were shown the game and allowed to play it to get a feel of it. How nice of the Microsoft events people!

Can’t wait for the launch! If you want to take part in the event and win some cool Ninja Gaiden 2 premiums, go camp this page (have to register and log in) and wait for updates!

Or you can keep checking back at my blog for updates because I will certainly be blogging about it. At least you get to read fresh content here every day and not just see the same old teaser page day after day. Heh.