Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven Critic Reviews

The best stealth game and ninja game on the market today. This is my choice for 2003's Game Of The Year.

If you’re the kind of guy who likes to chop his prey into Sizzlean before he gets a whiff of your bad man musk, then the ninjas of Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven are right up your dojo.

The perfect example of how to update a classic game without losing the spark of sheer enjoyment that made it great in the first place. This is the first must-buy game of 2003.

A real beauty in gameplay, graphics and sound. I cannot imagine any Tenchu fan out there not being overjoyed with the overall experience this game has to offer.

The ninja game the world has been waiting for. It fights with honor, but still handily slays the competition.

Spectacular kill sequences, a cool plot, cooler weapons and great levels all contribute to make this game the best of the Tenchu series, and one of the best first-person stealth games on the market.

The main thrust of the gameplay is thoroughly mesmerizing, and there's a bundle of replay value here too. Despite glitches, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is ace.

Perhaps the most puzzling thing of all is what happens when an enemy gets really, really confused. Most commonly you'll see them walk into a wall or some other barrier.

A solid storyline, the inclusion of co-op play and plenty of unlockable items and abilities go a long way in extending the life of this game. However, the contradictory AI and sometimes abysmal camera angles can complicate the gaming experience.

Even without the open-ended level design, it was every bit as absorbing as the first game was at its very best and then some. And because of its mission-based structure that allows for quick access to all unlocked levels, it became a very hard game to put down.

The combat engine is solid, the new moves are great, and the stealth-reward system is an excellent, tried-and-true technique that works perfectly here.

Does a marvelous job of bringing the tension and suspense of being a silent device of death to the PS2.

Gone are cumbersome mechanics like hiding bodies and sheathing swords to run faster; back are gruesome one-hit kills, fun grappling hooks and those lovely poisoned rice balls.

Not only lives up to its predecessors' own high standards, but also to the generally high standards of this popular style of gaming.

While the PS2-level graphics make the game prettier than its PSone predecessors, the basics of gameplay remain essentially unchanged since the debut of the first title.

Although its plot didn’t captivate me, its exciting gameplay did. Gameplay is covert, yet exciting and had my heart beating rapidly each time I crept up on an enemy for a stealth kill.

The story is confusing and as far as I'm concerned you might as well forget trying to figure out the whole picture. Just concentrate on completing your current mission and everything will take care of itself.

And oh my brothers, does the red, red krovvy flow real horrorshow under Tenchu's ultraviolence. That's A Clockwork Orange speak for "there's a lot of blood, too."

The game's core mechanisms, a mixture of platforming, grappling, sliding along walls, creeping in the shadows, and hand-to-hand combat, are tuned to near-perfection.

The framerate is also speedy-slick, and your ninjas feel and move as light as a feather.