Film Guide

I’m sorry, I know this is supposed to be a review of Ninja Gaiden Sigma, but it just happens to be the first time I’ve played on a PS3, and it was horrible.

The machine itself is far from the sexy image Sony is feeding us through product shots and display units. Up close it’s a cheap looking, $2 Shop plastic, monolith. It’s plain ugly. People complained that the original Xbox was big and ugly, but Sony have gone out of their way to re-define ugly.

The controller is essentially the same as the PS2. In other words is too small and too light. It feels like a kids toy and doesn’t give you any feeling that you’re actually immersing yourself in an experience.

Another thing Sony doesn’t seem to have changed is the interface. Talk about boring. From memory it’s a direct port from the PS2.

It’s horrible, horrible, horrible. And another thing. One of my pet peeves. No disc draw. You have to slide your expensive little game disc into a slot. I hate slot loading, it always manages to scratch the disk. What were Sony thinking?

But onto the game.

With the PS3 being such a huge disappointment, it was going to have to be an amazing game to woo me back to the land of gaming joy.

Unfortunately Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a port of an Xbox game from a few years back, titled (suprsingly) Ninja Gaiden. I didn’t realise this until I started playing the game. I played it for a while and whilst the graphics were nice, I just couldn’t stomach playing a game that I’ve already played, but on a repulsive machine.

But lets just assume that you’re a Playstation fanboy, and you’ve never even looked at an Xbox, let alone played on one. So you’ve never played Ninja Gaiden. Well if this is you, then you’re in for a treat. That junky monolith of a console you wasted over a grand on now has a decent game on it (just forget that it’s an Xbox port and you’ll be fine). The graphics are nice, there’s plenty of blood (blood seems to be a theme on next gen consoles) and apart from some camera issues, it’s a fantastic game.

It’s challenging enough that it will keep you occupied for a while, and it has plenty of action and challenges to make you want to keep going back to get onto the next level.

It’s just a pity it’s on the PS3.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.
Rating: R16 – Restricted to persons 16 years and over. NOTE: Contains Violence
Platform: PS3