Ninety Nine Nights 2 Review [Xbox 360]

N3 II is the Swedish Super Model that would have taken the world by storm but three years too late.  The sequel to the first N3 is upon us and I’ll tell you up front, it’s far from the best thing I’ve played.  However, it does serve a particular purpose, ironically, the same as Melrose Place serves in the pantheon of TV shows, distraction.

Q Entertainment expertly crafted a game that mimics the more popular games in the hack and slash genre, such as Koei’s Dynasty Warrior’s series (the 90210 in our analogy), with a totally unwarranted but can be passed off as semi-entertaining entry (the Melrose Place of the continued analogy.)  The problem with hack and slashers in the vein of N3 isn’t that they aren’t fun, it’s that there needs to be more to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd.  The unfortunate thing, N3 II falls short on many levels and comes out as a mediocre game that isn’t worth more than a curious rental.

Not unlike Dynasty Warriors, you are offered a choice of heroes to take into battle.  Each of these heroes has their own intersecting story lines but it’s not as cool as you might thing.  If you’ve seen any cinematic trailers for N3 II, you would think that this game would be like starring in your own Lord of the Rings.  You would be wrong.  Not only is the story forgettable (some evil in the land, you and your friends are its only hope) the cinematic cut-scenes are only passable and have horrible lip syncing issues.  And in all honesty, I skipped over much of the story so I could make it through the game.

Gameplay is pure button mashing - although you get the choice of a few buttons this time!  Enemies are also very mindless.  They will run at you with a force to storm the gates but stop just short of you so you can line up an attack.  But all this would be forgivable if not for a few things.  These enemies are relentless and will chip away at your health, even though they do very little damage, multiply that minor damage by 100 and you will die quickly.  Add in the very cheap boss fights, lack of save points, and restarts at the beginning of a one hour long level; you best be investing in new controllers because they will fly.

There is multiplayer, but online only.  This game begs for local co-op a la Contra styled gameplay but that’s not happening.  Online consists of challenge stages that you play with a friend but no way to play the main story in co-op.  You must endure the pain alone.  If you’re thinking at this point, “At least there’s probably easy trophies/achievements in it for me.” I’m afraid you would be wrong.  It’s not that the achievements are difficult, it’s that they are tedious and monotonous.  Having to play the worse game of the summer with every character just to score 100 points isn’t worth it in my book.

Overall, there are some redeeming factors to N3 II in a way that a summer popcorn flick has.  However, if you’re not desperately looking for a distraction, I would recommend skipping this mindless romp.  Even watching four episodes of MacGyver would stimulate you more.