Archive for category N

You’d think it would be in EA’s best interests to make the best possible version of NHL 08 on the PS3, wouldn’t you? Well they obviously don’t care if the PS3 version doesn’t sell as well as it could:

Now for the bad news PS3 owners. EA once again does you a huge disservice. With its first NHL title on PS3, EA has really dropped the ball visually. While the gameplay and feature set is identical to 360, the framerate is not. And while EA would like to say the PS3 version runs at 30 frames per second, that’s questionable. PlayStation editor Greg Miller put it best upon first seeing NHL 08 running on PS3: “It looks like they’re playing hockey under a strobe light.” You can still play and enjoy NHL 08 on PS3, but don’t you deserve a perfect framerate? Shouldn’t you demand a better-looking game? Write your Congressman and get EA to pay the PS3 a bit more respect. Nearly a year into its life, the PS3 should have sports games that run smoothly.

Wow, the PS3 gets the short end of the stick from a multi platform title yet again.

It would be really petty of me not to buy any EA developed games until they pull their fingers out, only thing is, the majority of their games have been disappointing, apart from SSX, SSX Tricky and SSX 3, so I haven’t bought any of their games for a long time anyway.

Keep this up and that trend won’t change anytime soon.

IGN Reviews NHL 08 on PS3

The day has finally come. Devil May Cry is no longer my favourite game in the ‘Stylish Action’ genre (as it is labelled). Ninja Gaiden Sigma has came along and smashed DMC with an unstoppable Ninpo attack that it may never recover from.

What’s so great about NGS? The combat is quite frankly fantastic. I haven’t had this much fun with an action game since DMC but this surpasses it with the incredible smoothness of Ryu’s actions and the fact that every battle is in your control. You live and die (literally) by how good you are at countering attacks and maneuvering Ryu around the battlefield, using your surroundings to your advantage.

He handles like a dream and cutting down Ninja after Ninja has never felt or looked so great. The way the enemies react and fall to the ground after you’ve sliced them is straight out of an Akira Kurosawa movie. By that I mean realistic. Probably not the best analogy to use but whatever.

Visually the game isn’t stunning but it looks very nice in 1080p on my new 40″ 1080p HDTV ( ) and there’s no framerate issues. Everything runs silky smooth, including the absolutely mental battles.

The camera could be improved though. It’s controllable via the right stick but too many times it gets stuck facing in the wrong direction, which can get frustrating when you’re trying to slice up some enemies while trying to get the camera facing in the right direction. It doesn’t spoil the game but it’s a minor annoyance all the same.

I also like the fact you can have the language in Japanese with English subtitles. It adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.

I haven’t played Ninja Gaiden or Ninja Gaiden Black before but just like DMC, the series has a reputation for being “hard”. I’m only playing it on Normal but I haven’t had too many problems progressing or dispatching enemies. Maybe it gets a lot harder later in the game but so far nothing too problematic.

Devil May Cry 4 has a lot of work to do to re-take it’s throne of King of the Stylish Action genre.