Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Demo Slashes Onto US PSN Next Week

It was the common thing to knock the camera, but really, one would just have to correct it by tapping R1 (or R3 was it?) occasionally (when going around corners or when turning around quickly) which became very intuitive and effortless, much like controlling the camera in gta4, minus having to adjust it along the vertical axis, which when driving on hilly terrain or streets was an irksome affair. And for one or two times in the whole game when one couldn't adjust the camera, and an enemy was to jump out at you, it was a deliberate fear inducing event, and not at all representative of something happening typically during frenetic gameplay whereby unavoidable tourettes's syndrome and controller-hurling frustration would be induced.

I'm looking forward to playing this demo. As hard as ninja gaiden sigma was, maybe this demo will last until sigma 2 comes out.

Since I played the original NG (i got an xbox just for that game as I got a 360 just for the sequel), I remember not being interested in getting Sigma. But after playing the demo obsessively completing each difficulty including the insane Master difficulty,, I grabbed myself a copy and it remains one of my most oft-played title in my collection.

Lol, mine would work up quite a sweat every time it would play ng2, and make noise like jetplane taking off because it was constantly loading. So, I'm glad I can get the ps3 version knowing it won't break the system, and I can keep my 360 red-ring free long enough off to play Gears 3. Sure, the missing blood spray and littering of body parts does take away from the Kill Bill motif of the game, but the gameplay remains the same, as the amputation and obliteration techniques are still intact. It's just that instead of being followed by over-the-top blood spray, and remains that don't dissappear, it's followed by purple haze (not the drug), and body parts vanishing as they did anyways with some enemies in the original NG2. But what did we get in return? Since those effects and dynamic on-screen assets before were taxing on RAM, Team Ninja kept the original game at a sub HD resolution of 585. This time we have a 1080p resolution as we had in the original Sigma, not to mention new characters, enemies, bosses, cutscenes, subareas/levels, weapons and coop mode. Not a bad deal.

There's actually a nice trailer for it on the Japanese store right now.

Is the breast-jiggling feature coded in this demo?
Just wonderin'.. lol.

SHHHHH. Don't mention the jiggle factor. You might piss off Ceedot again.

Tecmo will even give us the option of trying two co-op stages, and if you don't have a willing buddy, the CPU will control the other character. However, bear in mind that you won't be able to sample the online play with this demo;

So wait a minute, does this mean that there's OFFLINE multiplayer too?

As I said in my previous comment, the dismembering is still there. It's just that instead of being followed by hyperbolic blood spray, and body parts that don't disappear, their followed by mystic purple haze with fewer remaining body parts to reserve the RAM for a resolution of 1080p instead of the previous sub HD res of 585, as well as new characters, playable ones, enemies, bosses, areas, levels, cutscenes, weapons, and online coop. Not bad, plus you don't have to worry about red-ringing your 360 as i remember my 360 would make a lot of noise everytime a new or previous area had to be loaded, and it would freeze often as specific places.

Last edited by Aftab on 9/16/2009 3:13:25 AM

Other thing worth noting is that the AI has ramped up. Standard enemies no longer resort to the same attack patterns in each area, but instead are varied and randomized. And spamming attack methods like throwing a projectile followed by a hawk dive will be quickly countered unlike before.

I'm not sure if they have removed the ridiculous spamming of projectile attacks by enemies, but I can only assume so, as that was one of the major criticisms levied against the game, and Hayashi has made major steps at fixing each of the well-known bugs or nuances about the game, including camera ones, slow-down, and freezes, as heard from direct feedback by the fan community.

Besides the near-doubling of resolution (585 to 1080p), other visual changes include depth-of-field effects, and an improved camera that requires less manual adjustment. The 360 version (while still being based on an evolved engine of the original xbox ng) seems to do better hardware anti-aliasing, but ps3 version uses the Sigma engine which offers better lighting and dynamic shadows, and redone/improved character models, on screen assets, etc.

The only thing left to keep in mind is that NG has always been and still is HARD. It is not for the feint of heart, and other games of the same genre like DMC4 are comparatively a walk in the park. So, please keep that in mind.

Ninja Gaiden was my favorite game when Nintendo was a real gaming console. Is a shame they release this game when I have better options. Ryu is the coolest Ninja ever.