It's been a tough day for Ninja Gaiden 2 fans. After the bitter departure of Team Ninja's point man Tomonobu Itagaki, Major Nelson has confirmed that the demo for the game won't be dropping in the immediate future. People may have to wait several days to get a feel of Ryu Hayabusa's path towards revenge. Details in the full article up next.

QJ visited 10Tacle studios to squeeze a great amount of detail out of them about Elveon. We peeked over at GameSpy to have a small taste, a teaser, if you will, of this RPG/beat'em-up hybrid. And CVG nailed down the mastermind behind the game, Slavo Hazucha, to shake down more details of this upcoming title.

CVG learns that the gods of Naon, whom we first learned of in the full backstory lowdown from 10Tacle, will be integrated, somewhat, into the gameplay, sort of like the Olympian gods in Greek mythology. Story-wise, the Elvish hero makes a pact with the gods so that he can kick a**, liberate an ancient city, and fulfill a long-destined prophecy.

Gameplay-wise, these gods and godlike powers will not manifest themselves like magical powers like firebolts and such. Instead, there are some points where a god will intervene to grant the hero a temporary power. Sometimes the hero can call down the wrath of the gods on his enemies. Sometimes he's have to get down on his knees and beg the gods' mercy - or try the challenge out on his own. To us, it's all a deus ex machina thing (or more properly, dei ex machina: gods out of the machine).

Hazucha tells CVG that players can expect many optional quests along with the main storyline. Action-only players can invest about 15-20 hours into the game, whereas the more thorough RPG player can burn up to 25-30 hours. The game itself will be somewhat linear, taking place in levels, but the storyline that runs alongside the game is not. You'll be jumping between real-time and flashbacks between levels, "so that the player will feel like he is really walking in an ancient heroic legend."

And there will be multiple endings available, says Hazucha. There goes the initial 30-hour estimate.

Running off the Unreal 3 engine, expect to see the mythical world of Elveon play out in both the Xbox 360 and PC.