Ninja Gaiden Sigma (Sony Playstation 3, 2007)

Sigma, I must add, isn’t a sequel to the original Ninja Gaiden or its update Black, but rather another it’s another version with new bells and whistles designed specifically for the PS3. Taking all the elements from both versions of the game, Sigma’s story still centers on a ninja named Ryu Hayabusa - a ninja who happens to be the descendent of the Dragon Lineage protected by his family’s clan. It is on a fateful day that he comes home to his village being burned to the ground and an evil presence that has come to take the Dark Dragon Blade. Ryu confronts the evil dark master that controls monsters and is cut down easily. Surviving the attack, Ryu swears revenge and sets out to recover the blade. It’s en epic setup but the story never really gets any deeper … then again it’s not the story that will hook you but rather Ryu’s journey.

As a master ninja, Ryu has a number of cool acrobatic moves and his mastery of his Dragon Sword will allow him to rip through a number of enemies that range from other evil ninja clan members to otherworldly fiends and even modern technology. He still performs all the neat little tricks from the original Xbox version such as flying bird flips to wall running while performing interesting tasks like running on water (much like in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers). The new stuff, though, is what steals the show. Aside from his own armaments, the biggest addition to the weapon list has to be the twin Dragon’s Claw and Tiger’s Fang swords he can dual-wield for faster slicing-and-dicing.

I originally wanted to play the xbox releases of Ninja Gaiden, especially after hearing all of the praise the releases were recieving, but I did not want to buy an xbox to do it. Now after waiting a bit for the price to go down, I've finally taken the opportunity to play through, what I've been told is the best version availible of Ninja Gaiden, the one titled Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3.

It is indeed a stellar action game, with a good amount of challenge, character abilities, and atleast in my opinion, graphics that still stand as good in the current standard of games. The game seemed just as enjoyable as Devil May Cry 3 on the PS2, but I did find the camera frustrating at times, especially when in crowded fights and when fighting multiple bosses at once in the challenge missions. However, the fighting in itself is done quite well with multiple combos for each upgradible weapon the player can use, the ability to block, counter, use magic that can be leveled-up, throw opponents, and use a secondary weapon. Also, the enemies put up a really good fight, especially on difficulty levels very hard and up. In fact, I found myself frustrated at the difficulty sometimes, especially when having problems with the camera. Overall though, the challenge actually made this game more appealing for me.

I've been playing this game in 1080p on my Acer P243w LCD and as I mentioned before, I have been pleased with the in game graphics, even though the game is sort of a port from an older game system. It runs well and I haven't really noticed anything graphically terrible. But, the cutscenes unfortunatly were not upscaled, so they don't look especially crisp on a HD monitor and there is the occasional pause in the middle of a stage, for the game to load that lasts between five to twenty seconds that I found a bit of a nusance, especially after doing the optional install.

Thinking back on the story of the game though, it really was not anything fantastic. But, it did not take away from the experience really either. That being said, I am reminded why I bought this game and it was for over-the-top ninja action, which it does deliver.

So overall, despite the minor problems I had with the game that I mentioned in this short review, I do recommend this game to any action game fan who likes a good challenge. It will last a good while with the multiple difficulty levels that have different enemies and the challenge missions, which you can upload your score to see how well you fared in the game compared to other players around the world.

This game does not start out like most games do. It starts out with action and battling. It allows you to actually fight enemies without stopping you every three seconds to tell you how to do moves and attacks. This game is great over all and would have gotten an excellent rating but some things in it are too frustrating. In some parts of this game, you can get to the top of a cliff, then fall back down to the bottom. It can take a countless number of times to get back up to the top again. The levels are long which is good, but some of them seem to be a little too long. It is one of those games that if you stop playing in the middle of a level, and leave for a longer period of time, it is hard to pick it back up. Everything seems to flow and by getting up, you disturb the flow. Over all, it is a fun and challenging game that is not hard to get into. The controls are very simple and the over all concept of this game is great. I would give this game 4.5 out of 5 or a good and a half.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma for PS3 is the same game as the xbox version, although it has a different name. I was not entirely aware of this when I bought it, but it really didnt make a difference because I never even played the xbox version. If you havent played the xbox version, you are in for a treat.

Anyways, this is a fun game and one of the best non-sport/shooter games on PS3 to date. I find this game pretty difficult, even on the Normal setting. It is alot of fun and the graphics are awesome. This is not a 2-day rent to beat game (like Transformers is) and there is alot of gameplay involved. This game will defenitely fill space if you have time to kill. The controls are easy and there are a lot of easy combos to learn, some more difficult than others.

There are 5 weapons and you can choose your favorite to upgrade upto max level 5, learning new combo moves each level. The story is good and there is a ton of content to explore. The hard part of the game is not where to go or what to do, but how to go about doing it. It is not overly hard and if you cannot make it on the "Normal" setting, it will let you go back and start on easy mode.

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An excellent ps3 game. A new image for a classic NES game. The graphic are beautiful and the gameplay is very action driven, always keeps you on the edge. An excellent adeventure game for people who likes DMC. Ryu kicks major ass!