Ninja Gaiden Sigma

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I played this on the Xbox a while ago and thought this was an excellent game and there wasn't much room for improvement.

So far I've played this for a few hours and must say this game is DEFINATELY worth playing again. New levels, new bosses, new weapons, new scenery. But you probably knew all this already.

The biggest difference, at least to me, is the controls. They were excellent on Xbox, but this is WAY better. NG Black had a few frustrating jump sequences because camera would sometimes lose the perspective of the place you needed to see. This seems like it's been imporved a great deal. Because of tighter controls, action feels much faster, but at the same time easily manageable.

16:9 screen format is also a big improvement, since now it's not as easy for enemies to sneak up on you.

Wether you played this before or you are new to NG, or for that matter PS3 this is the one to have. It's a difficult and lenghty game, but it's one of the best games I ever played (and I've played many since the original Atari)

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I loved the first three Ninja Gaidens on Nintendo Entertainment System. They were challenging, frustrating, but the games were fantastic. It is not surprising then that Tecmo managed to transform their 2D franchise to 3D in an exceptional manner.

This game is a remake of Ninja Gaiden Black from Xbox (thus Sigma, meaning the sum). I never played the Xbox version, but after playing this game for the first few hours, I wondered why I waited so long. The game looks fantastic, running 1080p at 60 FPS (all the graphics have been overhauled). The control feels really tight, and making nimble moves feels natural. The learning curve may be steep for some, but the result is quite worth it. I was not a proficient ninja for the first few chapters of the game, but now that I have somewhat mastered Ryu's moves, I am able to quickly dispatch a group of enemies with grace and ease, with their heads rolling, literally.

The game contains additional playable character Rachel, as well as additional weapons over the Xbox version; dual sword wielding is awesome. You can unlock additional costumes, hair styles, and difficulties.

If you feel competitive, the game allows you to upload your scores to Playstation Network to compare with players around the world. You can see how many times they died, the time it took them to complete the game, and how many ninpos (special moves) were used.

If you love action, adventure, and challenge, this game is for you.

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Ninja Gaiden Sigma was a baptism of fire, to say the least. It throws you into a flurry of shurikens and blades the instant you begin to play, and the difficulty level does not waver throughout the game at all. For someone like me who crunches through games like a fiend, I was hoping that Ninja Gaiden Sigma would put up a fight.

This game was fun, but tough. You will definitely get the snot kicked out of you many times but that makes the victory that much more rewarding. This game is not for causal gamers or people who get frustrated easily. You will repeat a lot of fights either because of respawns or deaths.

My number one qualm about this game is the camera. It is one of the worst cameras I have ever had the displeasure of maneuvering in a game. Camera failures will disable your ability to focus on the proper targets, see around corners, and be sneaky...like a ninja is supposed to be. Camera adjustments are possible, but the controls are unresponsive as the game tries to focus on things for you and fails miserably.

Your opponents are supposed to cause your death, not a camera. This is the type of game where every last drop of health counts, and when your camera doesn't enable you to target any of the four enemies that are pumping you full of lead, your death will come quickly.

I expected more out of Tecmo for this port. The crappy camera is what made the fun factor 4/5 rather than a perfect 5. The game's challenge actually adds to the fun. It takes effort to win. But again, this fundamental flaw puts a damper on what the game could and should have been.

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Introduction:

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a revamped and overhauled version of Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black with additional content. Its one of the pinnacles of the action genre totally rehauled for next generation presentation.

Gameplay: 9/10

The gameplay in Ninja Gaiden Sigma is dead on. Either you fight with skill and intelligence or die frantically swinging your weapon around. At the end of the day the gameplay comes down to pure action which includes slicing, dicing, and decapitating enemies. The controls are spot on and every bit as accurate as they should be in an AAA title. From combos, fighting to running, jumping and wall running the controls are quick, responsive and perfect. While some have their complaints with the use of the SIXAXIS controls, I found that shaking the controller while using Ninpo to be a very effective and a good use of the new controller.

One of the only downfalls with Ninja Gaiden was it's camera. This is still somewhat of a problem but one that's easily overlooked because it rarely hinders the experience or gameplay. You can manually move the camera with R3 or center it with R1.

In addition to the great combat Sigma also offers a nice touch with the great boss battles and good puzzles. After beating Sigma you also unlock Mission Modes which are a blast to rip through; assuming you have the skill to. The addition of Rachael as a playable character is a bonus in Sigma. While her style is much different than Ryu's, the insight into the story and the change of gameplay is a nice touch.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics in Ninja Gaiden are astonishing. While I could act like I know what I'm talking about while referring to the self shadowing, 60 FPS, 1080p, and other technical jibberish there's really no need to. This game speaks volumes for itself. Team Ninja did a great job in upgrading the graphics to 1080p and often even adding content and colors that weren't present in the original releases of Ninja Gaiden. The only complaint I have about the graphics are that the cut scenes aren't quite up to par with the rest of the game. Despite that the cutscenes are still decent.

Story & Sound: 9/10

The story is what you'd expect from an action game. While it isn't anything spectacular it's certainly decent enough to make you want to continue playing. I always say sound is an overrated score in gaming reviews. Either it's great, good, or it sucks. With that said the sound effects, music, and surround sound are all very good-great. While there's a lack of tracks for the game, the simple music that is played is appropriate for the game.

Closing:

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is easily one of the best action games ever made. It's gameplay is addictive to any fan of the genre. The boss battles are grand, level design and layout are both very well executed, and the story is reasonably good. Based simply on the fact it's a true classic, Ninja Gaiden Sigma gets a 10 from me. I will admit that in all honesty if I didn't rate it a 10 [5 Stars] simply because it's a classic in my book but Sigma is probably more like a 9-9.5 based on it's merits. Its a game worth owning for years to come, or at least testing the waters in to see if you enjoy it.

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When talking of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, there are those who wish to talk about how the game differs from the original XBOX versions (especially Ninja Gaiden Black (2005)), on the one hand, and those who wish to talk about Sigma as simply a great PS3 game. I would like to focus on the latter point. Sure, NGS is more polished graphically than its predecessor, and has a new playable character -the heavily bosomed Rachelbut it is fundamentally the same game to any but the most fanatical Ninja Gaiden fans. Of course, Tomonubo Itagaki, who was Producer of the XBOX Ninja Gaidens, would disagree with this point: he has publicly denigrated the PlayStation 3 version of the game, perhaps because it was left to his understudies to make whilst he worked on the XBOX 360's Ninja Gaiden 2. But let's put that down to ego and move on.

Sigma is a beautiful game, but its real beauty lies in the complexity of the combat system. The game is quite simply a masterpiece of fast-paced control and combat design. It edges ahead of games such as the excellent Devil May Cry series because of its wonderful balance of defence and attack, magnificently fluid controls and ultra-demanding difficulty level. Its lasting brilliance is shown by how it is able to instil a feeling of pride in a gamer who succeeds in defeating a boss, or mastering a combo move: it is the gaming equivalent of learning a martial art. It is Ninjitsu for thumbs.

Sigma, whilst not significantly "better" than the previous versions of the game, is wonderful despite -or perhaps because ofthat. Most significantly, it gives PlayStation 3 owners the chance to play the greatest action adventure masterpiece of the last twenty years.