Video game endings back in the 80s and the early 90s were never really all that complicated. A short animation or a few screens, sometimes text only. But, hell, it still felt so rewarding when we were able to experience it for the first time after beating a hard game.

There's no doubt that ninja are among the coolest video game characters. They do everything with style; running, jumping, fighting, even breathing. These games—mostly platformers—were able to capture this no matter how limited the hardware capacity was; ninja always look awesome.

Back in the day Japanese developers didn't have the budget or the control to make perfect Japanese-to-English translations... although probably no one really cared. They had to translate and export their games to the West as fast as possible.

When Ninja Gaiden III came out, I was none too kind to it. As a long standing fan of the franchise, it just did too many questionable things: QTE's in combat, Long-winded villains, and an uncomfortable scene in which you're forced to murder somebody while he pleads for his life and the welfare of his children.

As Nintendo's first high definition console, Wii U will join the neverending, nothing-really-proven debate between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 over which console's visuals for whatever multiplatform game are superior. Some people are convinced it's a bad port, others are convinced it proves inferior hardware.

Snapped at DragonCon 2012 by Elysiam Entertainment, this is a human looking as close to Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa as a human could ever possible look.

This is a couple minutes of gameplay for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, the Wii U launch title that carves through dough-headed stooges like this and still can slice a tomato like this.