Archive for category N

Who invented the word ‘tidbit’ to describe small bits of info? Anyway, C&VG.com had a little chat with Ninja Gaiden Sigma Director Yosuke Hayashi, and he has made the lofty claim that “Ninja Gaiden Sigma will be the number one action game.” Oh, I think you’ll find DMC4 has that spot reserved thank you very much.

He also states that the game is at 50% and it’s looking very impressive, now that the devs are more familiar with the PS3 hardware. He also says that the PS3 hard drive will be used to eliminate annoying loading screens. As for the PLAYSTATION Network, you will be able to view worldwide scores and rankings for each player if that floats your boat.

So that’s some tidbits for you. Bring it on baby! There’s room for both Devil May Cry 4 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma in my games collection.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Tidbits

1up.com has an interview with Ninja Gaiden Sigma Director, Yohsuke Hayashi, and as I love my action/adventure games, I’m keeping a close eye on NGS as I’ve never played a Ninja Gaiden game before.

Firstly the game is only at 35%, up from 20% when it was shown at TGS ’06, so there’s a lot of work left before it’s scheduled release sometime this summer.

New to the PS3 version is the ability to fire Ryu’s bow and arrow while jumping in the air, the ability to fight battles on water and you can even change Rachel’s hair style and earrings, although the earrings do actually aid you in battle much like Ryu’s armlets, giving you new special abilities. Although Rachel is playable for the first time in the series, she only takes up about 20% of the main game.

For people who like games that are easy on the eye (me), NGS is going to be “the best looking action game on the market” and all the textures are being completely redone. Well, we’ll see how it compares to DMC4 and Heavenly Sword won’t we.

The game will be in 720p and Hayashi-san believes that 1080p is not needed to make a game look its best on the PS3. He’s quite critical of developers that aim for 1080p:

Well, this game is going to support 720p, and that is because we have determined that this is optimal resolution to get the best quality images out of the PS3. There are companies out there that are developing games at 1080p, and the problem is that they’re really pushing the limits of the hardware at that resolution, and I think that if you examine it objectively you will see that in order to get the best balance of performance and image quality then 720p is your only choice. I think that the companies that are making a big deal out of making games at 1080p are either underestimating their ability to get their games to run well at that resolution, or they’re basically just using that as an advertising gimmick. I’m confident that if you want to make the best-looking game you can on PS3, then 720p is your only choice.

I’m not a developer so I can’t agree or disagree with him but the amount of 1080p HDTVs that are on the market in all regions, suggest that 1080p would be wasted at this moment in time. I will be connecting my PS3 up to my 32″ SDTV because I simply can’t afford a HDTV anytime soon.

There is no online or offline multiplayer option in Sigma but it wasn’t omitted from a technical point of view and he has hinted it may be possible some time in the future.

As someone who has heard a lot of positive things about the original Ninja Gaiden, including the difficulty level, I’m very interested in this title. With DMC4, Heavenly Sword and Ninja Gaiden Sigma all set for the PS3 at some point this year, my favourite genre seems to be well catered for.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Interview

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Screens

You can check out a few new screens of Ninja Gaiden Sigma over at C&VG.com and the game is looking pretty sweet, as you can see from the screenshot below.

NGS is basically an upgraded version of Ninja Gaiden Black which was released on the Xbox, with new features including the ability to wield dual weapons, the ability to play as Rachel, some cut scenes using in-game visuals rather than FMV, new stages and of course a graphical upgrade.

I’m intrigued by this game because I’m a DMC nut/fanboy and Ninja Gaiden is supposedly a similar type of game with some people complaining about it’s difficulty levels. Similarly, a lot of people complain about DMC being too hard but I don’t find the difficulty level a problem so I want to find out for myself just what the deal is with one of the Xbox’s acclaimed franchises. I’ve got this marked down as a possible future purchase but it won’t replace my beloved DMC4.

New Ninja Gaiden Sigma Screens

Despite being a Brit I do have a passing interest in basketball having seen the Knicks play the Sonics at Madison Square Garden back in January, but I have never actually played a basketball game. NBA 2K7 has already been released on the xbox 360 and recieved pretty good reviews, so my interest in this title is higher than you might expect.

Impressively Visual Concepts, the team behind the game are working on making the PS3 version even better than the 360 version where most developers would simply work to port the game. This makes sense as NBA 2K7 will not only be going up against NBA Live 07 from EA, but Sony’s own NBA 07 (recently announced as a 1080p game) all at launch. Visual Concepts have added in more animations and have worked harder on the motion capture since the 360 version went gold; they’ve also used one of the Cell SPUs to cope with the players uniform physics, this might seem a bit over the top, but it leaves the rest of the processor’s power to be allocated on other functions. The team has also added more detail off the court to the crowds, mascots and cheerleaders during timeouts. The PS3 version is also described as having a much richer look than the 360 version due to the way the rendering is completed, producing a more lifelike recreation of the NBA.

The upgrades are not just graphical though. NBA 2K7 PS3 will use the tilt controls in free throws, and if you want to you can take the shot just as you would a real basketball (hold the controller at head height and flick it forward). It’s good to see developers trying out idea like this with the controller and am interested to see what more comes from this approach. The game supports up to seven players on one console and when taking a free throw your opponent can shake their controller to put your shot timing off. If tweaked just right these features could be excellent additions. On the more negative side the game as yet does not feature an online mode, whilst Visual Concepts are confident they will be able to implement this by release they suggest the game could be delayed to become a launch window game. This is becoming the case with an alarming number of titles and is something I hope Sony sorts out very, very soon.

IGN preview- images and videos

I hope PS3 owners will be able to store songs on their hard-drives and play their own music in games like NFS Carbon as the official soundtrack doesn’t fill me with joy. They were apparantley chosen to reflect the three different classes of cars: exotics, muscle cars and tuners. I’m a big music lover but I haven’t heard of quite a few of the below artists:

Dynamite MC – Bounce
Dynamite MC – After Party
Eagles Of Death Metal – Don’t Speak (I Came to Make A Bang!)
Ekstrak feat. Know-1 – Hard Drivers
Every Move A Picture – Signs Of Life
Gary Numan/Tubeway Army – Are ‘Friends’ Electric
Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five – Scorpio
Goldfrapp – Ride A White Horse (Serge Santiago Remix)
Kyuss – Hurricane
Lady Sovereign – Luv Me Or Hate Me
Ladytron – Sugar (Jagz Kooner Remix)
Ladytron – Fighting In Built Up Areas
melody. – FEEL THE RUSH (Junkie XL Remix)
Metro Riots – Thee Small Faces
Part 2 feat. Fallacy – One Of Dem Days (Remix)
Pharrell feat. Lauren – Skateboard P Presents: Show You How To Hustle
Priestess – I Am The Night, Colour Me Black
Roots Manuva – No Love
Spank Rock – What It Look Like
Sway – Hype Boys
The Bronx – Around The Horn
The Presets – Steamworks
The Vacation – I’m No Good
Tiga – Good As Gold
Tigarah – Girl Fight (Mr. D Hyphy Mix)
Tomas Andersson – Washing Up (Tiga Remix)
Valient Thorr – Heatseeker
Vitalic – My Friend Dario
Wolfmother – Joker And The Thief
Yonderboi – People Always Talk About The Weather (Junkie XL Remix)

NFS Carbon Official Soundtrack Revealed