I would gladly snap Ninja Blade in half to punish it for its egregious sins, but such a quick death would not suffice for the unprecedented torment this game has put me through. Like a tasty lollipop that spews acid every five minutes, the fulfilling nourishment of Ninja Blade has been needlessly contaminated with bugs and scorpions and maybe even poisonous spiders. My problems started last night, when I was peacefully carving up my foes, finishing quick-time events with reckless abandon, and generally being the type of ninja a mother could be proud of. It's fun to slice and even more fun to dice, so happy was I wielding my sword. It seems so very long ago.

It was midway through the second level, just after I finished off the Slime Copter with a flourish, that the trouble began. A cutscene cued up, as is the case after any semimajor battle, and I dutifully skipped ahead as I always do with pointless stories. There I was, fire glaive in hand, when my girlfriend innocently asked if we could watch the newest episode of House. Seeing as I had just reached a checkpoint, it seemed like a doable request, and I turned off my console to watch the comedic styling of Hugh Laurie. I'll always remember that episode of House as the last moment I was in possession of my own sanity.

Because Ninja Blade is so darn fun, I was eager to restart my quest when my favorite medical drama ended. I loaded up my game and immediately noticed something was wrong. I was in a helicopter. There is nothing wrong with a ninja riding in a helicopter, but this seemed eerily familiar. Instead of continuing from the checkpoint I so rightly earned, I was shoved back to the beginning of the level, all my progress mysteriously erased. What post-NES game doesn't contain midlevel checkpoints? The sheer absurdity of the situation was enough to make me growl and vent with rage, but I bottled it up inside, took a deep breath, and quietly turned the system off. I went to bed--fingers crossed--certain this problem would be magically rectified after a little sleep.

Fast forward to today. Firing up my saved game, I once again was forced to start at the beginning of the level. No surprise there--I had convinced myself that playing through those 40 minutes again would build some much-needed character--and I happily started off again. I already knew the lay of the land, so I was able to fly through the level with unfettered determination. That worm boss that seemed so difficult the first time? Now felled with a few precise swipes. I was a ninja's ninja, a man born in the shadowy black pantsuit that allowed me to anonymously destroy my unnamed foes. And once again, I was caught up in the unrelenting joy of slicing and, don't forget, dicing, quick timing like a man possessed. The life of the ninja is a good life indeed.

This time, I took down that haunted Slime Copter in record time, tearing through the rest of the level in the same heated pace. The end boss, a giant in size, was miniscule against my ninja might. He died quickly, in a glorious explosion that made me yelp with joy. And then, when the game was awarding me my 3000 rubies of power, the darndest thing happened--the screen went black. And it stayed black. For minutes on end, I stared at the screen, willing it to load. To save. To do something to remember my hard-fought victory. But it was hopeless. My game had crashed and with it the third level I had rightly earned vanished. Once again, my furious anger rose in my throat, only to be blocked at the last second by a moment of rationality.

"That sucks," I muttered.

I had already played through this level one and a half time. I knew my way through this cursed second level better than the designers at this point. Surely, if I could run through at a breakneck pace during my second play through, my third would set a record more improbable than the three minute mile. I took a brief break at this point, my rational side again taking center stage, as I installed the game onto my hard drive. My theory: if the system could not read the disc during that ending sequence, I'll just spool the data beforehand so something like that would never happen again.

Once again, I slayed the worm, busted up that copter, and extinguished those fires before the game even realized I had pushed start. 45 minutes from beginning to end, I was nearing the final boss when I got to a rather benign section. A few enemies were lined up on a ledge before me, throwing their purple balls of death. I batted them back, quickly killing them, and then tossed my shuriken. My fancy ninja blade knocked down the wall across from me, giving me access to a grapple point. I quickly switched to my ninja hook, ran to the edge of the platform, and jammed on the A button. My ninja started to jump like a magic bean. "What's going on?" I thought. When a grapple point is exposed, tapping the A button is supposed to propel you across the pit. But there was no prompt. I was stuck on that ledge, jumping like a fool, with no way to cross it.

I tried to backtrack but an invisible wall made sure I couldn't leave the ledge. I desperately jumped around, cycled through my weapons, and threw my ninja stars like a man possessed, but nothing happened. I pushed all the buttons down at the same time, hoping I could commit seppuku, but apparently that move isn't programmed in this game. I was stuck on this rock with no where to go. "Crap," I thought. I selected "Restart from checkpoint" in the main menu, hoping I could jump back a few minutes and continue on my way, when my evening got significantly worse: Disc. Read. Error. My game had crashed. I had played through the level 3 times, devoted almost three hours of my life to that bug-filled second level, and had nothing to show for it.

And when I sat down to write this angry blog post, a spider was above my computer, making me run to my girlfriend for help. Clearly, this is a bad 24 hour stretch for me.

What do I do now? Can I possibly play through this level a fourth time, knowing full well that some new problem will surface? Or do I live vicariously through Kevin, whose fabled shouts of glee made this game sound so appealing? I'm lost and angry and scared. If the game wasn't super fun, I would gladly have snapped it in half and walked away from it forever. But everything about the game--apart from the broken save system and tendency to crash--is great. I rode a missile into a helicopter for Christ's sake! Thinking about the awesome battles, the surreal scripted events and gargantuan monsters, makes me excited to fire it up one more time. I'm just not sure how I will react if I fail again.