Tenchu

Ahhh... blood, blood, and more blood. There is nothing like stealtily walking up to an unwary guard and slitting his throat. This game very accurately depicts the life of a ninja, right down to the very weapons they used. Few improvements could have been made, but it still has many flaws.
After months of sitting in Japan, Tenchu has hit our shores, and comes packed with two more missions, and a training mode. Not only that, the devolpers tweaked the engine so enemy AI was more realistic. This makes the games much more difficult, but pays off in the end for the touch it adds. In the game, you must accomplish a variety of tasks for your master Big M... uh, I mean Lord Godo. Your missions range from assassinating a pirate, to stopping a cult uprising. The tools given to you for accomplishing this are amazing. One of the coolest aspects of this game has to be the grappling hook. Never before in a totally 3-d roaming world, have I been given the option of going from roof-top to roof-top. Just sitting there, while the guard below you knows nothing about what is going to happen to him gives me some kind of strange joy. And then dropping down and stabbing my sword through his head is just plain fun! The tools at your disposal are awesome, giving you anything from smoke grenades to poison rice. There's only one thing about the poison rice I don't understand. If I was a guard for some high and mighty Shogun, and I knew the enemy employed ninja, the last thing I would do is eat some rice that materialized out of nowhere. maybe pizza, but not rice.
But Tenchu is not, sadly, a perfect game. It's main flaw is caused by its third person perspective. Due to this, battle is made incredibly difficult, and does not have the right feel to it. A game that accurately depicts the fst and furious action that is a sword fight has yet to be made. In Tenchu you'll find yourself suddenly with your back to your opponent, and you'll take some freebie damage. It also suffers from the same pitfalls... Mmmmmm... Pitfall, that the Tomb Raider series does. The fact of the matter is...reader, that it becomes very hard to judge jumping distances, and the people's feet do not reach the people's ledge.
So Tenchu is a reccommended buy. A rental at the least. You can easily deafeat all the missions in one night, but mastering them is another story altogether. The ability to never have to actually confront a single enemy, the exception being bosses, adds a bit of innovation to the genre. But a flawed combat engine makes me resent those very boss battles mentioned. In the end, a great game with a few mistakes, that could have, and should ahve been fixed. Sure to become a Playstation classic, if not a sleeper hit. 9/10

-Mark Masterson