The back of the box for the newly-released XBox 360 game "Ninja Blade" visually advertises three features. One of them is the game's "Quick-Time Events," those commonly-used cinematic sequences that require players to tap specific buttons in order for them to play properly. QTEs seldom are offered as a selling point. Do most people even know what they are?

While visiting the Sega offices in San Francisco last week, I noticed two arresting pieces of art on company walls.

Both featured ninjas.

But neither one was selling a game. Instead, they were reminding Sega workers to keep quiet about Sega's secrets.

(Click the image at left to see how Shakespeare helped the ninjas make their point.)

These posters were encouraging employees to not be like the people who let all those "Sonic Unleashed" shots permeate the Internet a few weeks ago. 

But surely these images themselves shouldn't be hidden, right? Surely the world must know how it is that Sega secrets remain secret.

Multiplayer readers, I give you: The Official Sega Ninja Keeping-Secrets Posters.

(P.S. Next time I won't use the flash on my camera. I won't even need a motivational poster to remind me.)

I met with "Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword" producer Yosuke Hayashi twice last Thursday: the first time at his hotel on Manhattan's east side to talk ninja gaming, the second to show him New York City as viewed from the 29th floor of the MTV News offices in Times Square. It was his first time in Manhattan.

At our first meeting he told me that New York smells just like Tokyo, a reference I'm still waging an internal debate about whether it was a compliment or complaint.

I invited him to come by the MTV offices later in the afternoon so he could see the city from above. From the 29th floor he looked out over the Times Square and then went to a westward-looking window and saw the Hudson and New Jersey. From each of the three sides of the building that I brought him to, he looked out of the windows and said "Sugoi!" That means he was impressed. More impressed with New York, I hope, then when I'd asked him what he thought of his trip to Manhattan during our first meeting. Through a translator, he had mustered: "Oh wow, there are hot dogs on every corner."

I'd like to think I taught him a little bit about the Big Apple. If so, maybe it was a fair trade? During our interview earlier in the day he taught me a few key things about "Ninja Gaiden" on the DS.

This is what I learned:

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Why would Tomonobu Itagaki implement a YouTube-like capture-and-share video system in the upcoming Xbox 360 "Ninja Gaiden II"? I didn't know last week. So I asked him, backstage after the Microsoft keynote at GDC.His answer -- and a classic Itagaki moment of turning the tables on the interviewer -- are above.

An excerpt from the above clip:

Itagaki: Well, we had a lot of feedback that the first "Ninja Gaiden" was a little bit too difficult. And we're taking a lot of steps for the sequel to help alleviate that. But one thing that we thought is if we give people an example, a reference, say this is how you get past this certain encounter this is the moves you can use in order to play the game better, if you give some advice in the way of a video that would help increase their proficiency in the game."

It is amazing how a few recent gaming announcements have had a unique effect on me.

No, it wasn't the fact that the Xbox 360 HD DVD Drive was price-dropped (again). And, no, surprisingly it was none of the recent leaked info on "Mario Kart" for the Wii. It was actually news about a genre that seems to fade a little more each and every year, as well as the characters within it...

By now most gamers are aware that "Street Fighter IV" has been announced. If you happened to miss yesterday's leaked Famitsu news, a few more original characters have been added to the roster: E. Honda, Dhalsim, and Chun-Li, the last of which was extremely important for me to hear. Why?

Because Chun-Li matters.

You see, my dear Multiplayer friends, I have had an ongoing infatuation with Chun-Li since I first laid my hands on a SNES controller (I was too young to be hanging around at the arcades back in those days). Chun-Li was my first gaming crush, and she has shaped the way I look at and play fighting games ever since the early '90s.

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Over at MTVNews.com I have a meaty write-up of "Ninja Reflex," a Wii (and DS) game coming out in March from Nunchuck Games and EA.

Nunchuck Games is headed by David Luntz, former head of Z-Axis, and, he told me, someone who has appreciated the values of the martial arts.

We talked for some time about what he wants people to get out of the game -- beyond just a fun mini-game experience. And he was even kind enough to share some photos he took during a six-week research trip in Asia, where he watched and studied with practitioners of several martial arts.

An excerpt from the MTV News story:

He saw, at last, how he could make a game about being a ninja that was different from all the other ninja games out there. After all, the world already has "Ninja Gaiden," "Shinobi," "Tenchu," sequels to those games and plenty more. But his ninja game — the newly announced "Ninja Reflex" — would be different.

"Those games are, although awesome games, I felt that that road of 'Let's go around and kill people' had been fairly well explored," Luntz told MTV News in an interview last week. "My focus was less on the killing aspect of martial arts as on the path of skill."

Luntz wanted a game that emphasized the ninja traits of moving with undetectable speed, a test of reflexes beyond any first-person shooter, racing game or anything else that requires a gamer's finely honed ability to twitch. The Wii's motion control could do this, he thought, and time players down to the milliseconds.

I played the game last month and had a lot of fun with it. Catching flies with chopsticks makes for a wonderful remote-only Wii mini-game.

For more on Luntz's trip, more pictures and much more on "Ninja Reflex," check out the rest of my story at MTVNews.com.