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A number of board games make their purpose to have players figure out a mystery, usually the murder of a character. Murder mysteries have quite a popular following in the board game world, as they generally raise the stakes higher than most other forms of mystery. With a number of suspects available, players usually race against each other to uncover information and solve the crime before the others. Sometimes, players play as the suspects themselves and other times they act as independent gumshoes. In either case, however, deduction board games are some of the most popular sources of entertainment in the gaming realm.

One such game, Orient Express, gives players the chance to use their highly developed skills of deduction and reasoning to solve an intriguing mystery. However, unlike other detective games, Orient Express doesn't end when the first player figures out the solution to the murder. The train is on a set path from Paris to Istanbul and will make its complete route before the game ends. It is the job of the players to solve the mystery within this time frame, and it is perfectly possible for more than one player to correctly solve the mystery by the time that the Orient Express reaches Istanbul.

Players begin the game by choosing one of 10 preset mysteries before the game starts. Each of these 10 mysteries has been predetermined and can only be played once. There is a common theme through all of the cases, in that a murder has been committed by one of the eight possible suspects and it is up to the players to solve the murder before the train reaches Istanbul and the murderer runs free. The eight different suspects under investigation are an actress, a ballerina, a colonel, a fortune-teller, a gambler, a diplomat, a baroness, and a count. Someone on the train was murdered by someone in that group and it is the duty of the players to discover who.

Another inventive deduction game is Mystery of the Abbey, which allows players the chance to solve a thrilling murder mystery while additionally providing a unique atmosphere to enhance the level of fun and game play. The goal of the game is to solve the murder of the unfortunate Brother Adelmo, who was discovered at the bottom of a cliff by the monastery. Twenty-four different monks live in the monastery and it is the goal of players to discover the murderer before anyone else. However, normal monastic life is still observed during this investigation, providing a number of twists during the game.

Suspects are divided into a number of different categories to distinguish them. All of the monks are either of the Templar, Franciscan, or Benedictine orders, and are either Fathers, Brothers, or Novices. They either wear hoods or they do not, are either clean-shaven or bearded, and are either fat or thin. With all of these different distinguishing characteristics, players can slowly narrow down the list of suspects until they feel confident enough to make an accusation. However, as the game progresses and players begin to learn more about the culprit, they make revelations. If these revelations prove correct at the end of the game, they can score points for the player. In the end, the player with the most points wins, making it possible to win the game without being the player who solved the murder. A unique twist on a mystery, both of these games give players the chance to play detective in an exotic setting.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for board games, chess boards, and dungeons and dragons miniatures. You will find all these things and more if you visit board games using deduction and chess boards.

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Video games are now held to new standards as of lately due to the recent releases of the new consoles, which makes it even harder for sequels to crowned as a premium title. This would be the case for the newly released Ninja Gaiden 2 for the X-Box 360! As a fan of the 360 one would anticipate the arrival of this game seeing how it's predecessor is hailed to be one of the greatest actions games of it's time. Now Ninja Gaiden 2 does not break ground into some new way to design action games but it does do a great job at being a sequel, and by that last phrase it is meant that it meets all the requirements of the game before it and includes some new aspects to get old and new players into the title and series.

Let's start with the things that Ninja Gaiden 2 does correctly. With the return of popular weapons such as the Dragon Sword, Vigoorian Flails, Windmill Shuriken, and Lunar Staff the game rewards those how have played the first game by giving the a weapon that they are comfortable with and let's new player have a same glimpse into the previous title. The game does not stop there it has given players a handful of new weapons that offer some more than original and creative ways to fight against the hoards of enemies that you will encounter in this adventure. The battle system seemingly unflawed with minor problems in fighting sequences. For example the bases of your combos are a light, quick attack and a harder, slower. No matter which sequence of attacks that you throw at certain enemies they will be simply over thrown and disregarded by the bigger enemies. This not a major problem but can be quite aggregating at times after happening a couple of times in a row.

Another thing that this title does is that it rewards the player for learning combos and pulling off more difficult maneuvers like the izuna drop which will instantly kill an enemy. The button combinations are simple enough to remember but are complex enough so that a novice could not just pick the controller and master these techniques, give the gamer a great sense of accomplishment upon finishing one of these moves. Besides the action packed battle system the boss fights are fantastic. Team Ninja does a great job of making the boss fight monumental. Whether it is achieve by making the bosses enormously huge or by giving them lightning wielding hands they certainly establish that there is always a slim to zero chance that you will be walking out of these fights alive, which make player feel great after beating any boss. The best and newest edition to the game is the new obliteration system that has been added. This system enables the player finish off enemies after severing a limb from an enemy in a quite flavorful and theatrical sequence.

Let's Alright, now that we have pointed out what is good about the game, we must bring you the bad. Now this lovely hack and slash title does have a few speed bumps on it's highway to greatness. The first and probably most important is the story. While the story is not horrible it does hold this game back from being a triple "A" title not to be forgotten. Titles like these generally don't have nor need an immense story but the story in Ninja Gaiden 2 fails to attach the player to any of the characters in the game except Ryu. This plot makes sense but stretches from fighting human ninjas in present day Japan to fighting an ancient greater fiend on top of the Statue of Liberty and continues to drop our ninja friend in vast parts of the earth and some parts that may not be on earth, leaving the gamer to wonder how in the world did this ninja get to this destination.

In addition to the weird and uncompelling story the music is lack luster and faintly in the background of the vibrant action taking place on the screen and hardly makes the player feel enraged and ready to kick butt. The last thing about the game that is a bit frustrating is the fact that the game rarely rewards you outside of the X-Box live achievements (which pretty much don't do anything) the game doesn't offer any special weapons, items or combo for your extracurricular exploration except for the non profitable crystals skulls which do absolutely do nothing.

Overall

These few flaws are not enough to stop the addicting fun of hacking ninja limbs to pieces and obliterating beast and machines with the mere commands of your buttons. Any fan of game play should pick this title up. This title lives up to the expectations of it's predecessors but doesn't go above and beyond, an daunting task to ask of any game, with all facts considered this game Ninja Gaiden 2 an illustrious...

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