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If you're hanging out for a new game on PS3, here's one that's getting impressive reviews overseas.
Surprisingly, it's a complete remake of an old Xbox game so you might miss it if you're not aware of how good it is.
Ninja Gaiden has always been on the best rugged games out and the visuals are stunning ( 60 fps at 1080p ) in this PS3 version. Xbox fans will remember Ninja Gaiden was a great early title for that console. It was hard, visually good and full of fast brutal action.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (R16) is a more complete version of "Ninja Gaiden Black" (released a year later in 2005, adding a mission mode and new enemies) with the heroine, bad babe Rachel, now playable and main ninja, Ryu Hayabusa, having new weapons and combos and can do cool things like walking on water. Ryu is trying to recover a legendary Dark Dragon Blade and avenge the way his village was destroyed. There's quite a lot of new content: new battles, enemies, weapons ( A Dragon's Claw and Tiger's Fang, a dual-sword combo, pops up early on ). On top of all that, it has nice next-gen graphics and is definitely the best of the three Ninja Gaidens.
First thing you notice: you can install the game onto your PS3 hard drive, which is a really nice feature straight off the main menu.
This has never been an easy game and I've had my share of thumb-freezes mid-combo. It's challenging and sometimes frustratingly so - as you encounter tough bosses and hope you can keep your health bar replenished prior to said boss matches. The audio tips are helpful. You'll take a while learning to master weapons and use them successfully. This game - not for button-mashers.
Ryu is still the kingpin of the game. It's nice to be able to at last play Rachel as she finds demons to kill but she's nowhere near as much fun or nimble as Ryu. The plot was never strong ( as you wait for the install reading through about Deity's and Dragons ) but the action's the thing and the AI is smart enough for the enemies to respond to what you do and so have multiple variations of attacks instead of encountering the same thing over and over again.
One downside is that it takes a while to get anywhere. You have to battle your way through the normal difficulty mode before you can unlock missions or harder difficulty settings and if you've played this in its earlier variations, this is a downer as it can take many hours in the single-player game. Everything is more beautiful though it would be nice to have an ingame menu - menu options aren't available mid-game so you must reach a save point. You might have to quit and come back in to do something like alter the music volume or adjust the gamma level.
On the PS3, it's so smooth, unlike the original Xbox version that tended to be clunky. At last, decent camera controls - most times you get a good vantage point of the action and it's usually nicely adjustable but there is the odd frustration when this isn't so.
Controls are quick in responsiveness. A game that came out three years ago before it's time not only holds up well but has reached its full bloom.
You can't help but marvel at the texture resolution, character detail is fantastic and the way it runs if you have a 1080p screen. This is a game that needs to run fast to keep up with the action.
Rating: 9.5 / 10
