When David Lee Roth left Van Halen, it took some time for the band to hit their stride again — but we eventually warmed to Sammy Hagar. When Steve Carell left the office, it took a few episodes for the show to find the right comedic rhythm, but Dwight and Jim eventually found their place. There’s a big part of me that hopes that Team Ninja is merely trying to find their rhythm following the departure of series creator and studio frontman Tomonobu Itagaki — because as hard as this is to accept, the long awaited Ninja Gaiden 3 is nothing short of a spectacular failure.

The previous Ninja Gaiden games had a bit of a reputation — they weren’t just action games, they were action games with substance. Renown for their difficulty and depth, Team Ninja created some of the most memorable moments in recent memory — but not here. Ninja Gaiden 3 trades all of that in for cheap mechanics, and buggy, unpolished gameplay — then tops it all off with one of the worst cameras seen in a modern action game.

Ninja Gaiden 3 again places in you the shoes of the masked Ninja Ryu Hayabusa who gets a request to fight English terrorists from the Ministry of External Affairs. This leads to Ryu having to deal with an organization called The Regent of the Mask, who aims to destroy the world in seven days if every country doesn’t surrender. For what it’s worth, it’s easily the most intelligible story that the franchise has ever seen — it’s just when it goes beyond that, where we start to see the game suffer.

The problems begin early in the game, after you’ve already dispatched a ton of nameless, faceless enemies, you come across one who’s begging for his life. He’s got Kids — this is just a job! He screams at you, you back him into a semi-truck and stand there. This is where you would more than likely believe that you’d get the moral choice whether to kill the man or not — nope; you’ve got to shred him, and it’s easily one of the most uncomfortable moments I’ve played in a game.  It’s also almost a bit insulting that later on in the game, the campaign tries to tell you a moral of choice, and tells you how you’re not a murderer. Yeah, I’ve just wasted a ton of guys who were begging me to spare them — oh yeah, I’m a frickin’ saint.

It’s clear very early in the game that Team Ninja is guilty of being incredibly gluttonous with its features on as a result – -the game suffers majorly from overkill, and key among them is the inclusion of quicktime events. Now, I normally don’t mind a few quicktime events thrown into games for good measure, but it quickly becomes too much here. The main menu is a quicktime event. The main friggin’ menu! You literally have to keep hitting the buttons on the screen to advance to the game itself. In fact, there’s an almost embarrassing amount of these quicktime events within the game’s first ten minutes. Jump off that building to avoid the rockets? Quicktime! Slide down that alley? Quicktime!

By far though, the most infuriating use of these quicktime events is how often they pop up in regular. Literally every person you fight, the game will prompt a quicktime event. So yeah, it’s cool the first time to see Ryu chop off some guy’s head the first few times, but when it happens so often — it just gets in the way. There are two main attack buttons in Ninja Gaiden 3, and you’ll find yourself trying to find ways to use both of them that won’t trigger these quicktime events, but good luck. Oh, and there’s magic you can do too — but it too is the victim of overkill, as everytime..every single time that you trigger it, you’re treated to a lengthy animation that you can’t skip for any reason.

It also doesn’t help that Ninja Gaiden 3 features a remarkably broken camera that seems intent on giving you the worst possible angles in every possible situation.  Oh, you want me to slaughter those guys over there? Sure! Wait, I can’t even look at them? That’s going to be an issue. There were multiple times throughout the campaign that I kept taking damage from someone, but to find them I had to wildly swing the camera one way or another. A game’s main draw should not be this hard.

Ninja Gaiden 3 does have its moments though, like getting into a rhythm against a crowd of baddies and laying waste to them. There’s also a pretty stellar T-Rex boss battle that stands out (as long as you don’t question why it suddenly becomes mechanical halfway through the fight). None of this can save the game however, as Team Ninja has stripped the game of what made the series so fun. There’s no challenge here, and while accessibility is great — substituting challenge for a just throwing a bunch of enemies on screen at one time is not the way to go about it. Ninja Gaiden 3 lacks the personality, depth and appeal that those games that came before it did, and it’s sad.

It pains me a bit to say this, but Ninja Gaiden 3 is just short of terrible. Redeemed by a few enjoyable sections, it’s a sloppy mess of failed mechanics and additions that just plain don’t work. The game manages to strip the series of everything it’s been known for and substitutes a sub par action game in its place. Come back Itagaki..we miss you more than ever.

Team NINJA and Tecmo Koei announced this morning that its upcoming action slasher Ninja Gaiden 3 will feature full Move support when it launches on the PlayStation 3 early next year.

“We are really excited to announce this fantastic news at one of Europe’s most prestigious game events that is Gamescom”, stated the leader of Team NINJA Yosuke Hayashi in a press release. “Ninja Gaiden 3 is all about slicing and chopping through flesh and bone and PlayStation Move bring players even closer to the game’s protagonist Ryu Hayabusa.  The game will be compatible with all Move peripherals and it will feature full compatibility with this exciting new hardware.”

Ninja Gaiden is set to launch sometime next year on the PS3 and Xbox 360, no word has been given on Kinect support for the later.

There’s not much you can dislike about Ninja Gaiden. You’ve got Ryu Hayubasa, arguably the most badass ninja around. You’ve got giant bosses, opposing ninjas that won’t wait around to attack you one at a time, beautiful ladies, and powerful weaponry to help you cut a path through anything that stands before you–you’ll need that help, because the action sequences are difficult (but satisfying).‚  There are problems though, and they keep Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 from absolutely-must-own status like the first title in the series and its revamped Playstation 3 edition.

The original has been kicking around for well over a year, so you may know the basics, but for the uninitiated, here goes. Sonia, a CIA agent dressed like a dominatrix and stacked like a porn star, is looking for Rya Hayabusa, and she’s kidnapped in front of him by the Dragon Clan’s nemesis, the Black Spider Ninja Clan. You eventually catch up to Sonia and get her to spill the beans about the crisis facing the world, but not fast enough to stop them from putting the plan into motion. Because of this, you have to take down the Greater Fiends and all of the ninjas, demons and giant puppet statues they employ along the way as you attempt to stop the awakening of the Arch Fiend.

As Ryu, you are trained in the use of a variety of weapons, most of which, while different in their use, find the same result: enemy dismemberment. Dismembered enemies (excepting those missing their heads, of course) will attempt to commit explosive suicide on top of Ryu, so you need to be mindful of them. Battles, no matter which weapon you wield, are fast-paced and frantic, and you need to be on your toes and blocking in order to survive the larger onslaughts. Thankfully, the camera, which was such a massive drawback in Ninja Gaiden II, has been fixed most of the way thanks to a camera reset that puts the view in the direction Ryu is looking. It can still be trouble on occasion if you are cornered, but it’s not something you’ll notice every step of the way.

If you like difficult action games with loads of enemies, then Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is for you. The story is completely over the top at times, and it seems like it takes itself very seriously, but at the same time you know deep down that everything is very tongue-in-cheek. How else do you come to a scenario where a man with a sword is able to destroy gigantic and iconic statues that have come to life like they are made out of Play Doh? The story is actually more enjoyable because of its nonsensical nature, because you’re sitting around waiting to see what ridiculous idea the developers have come up with for your next epic battle.

There’s some new stuff for those considering diving in a second time, like new bosses, weapons and playable characters, as well as an online co-op mission mode. If you’re by your lonesome, the second character will be controlled by the computer, so you can still experience this even if you have no one to play with. The missions are also great for replay value, given you can go through them again and again with your buddies, using different characters and strategies to get by. Sigma 2 also did a great job of cutting out a lot of the excess fat from the Xbox 360 version–because of this, the pacing is better, cheap deaths are lessened and the game is an overall more satisfying experience because of it. Oh, and you can jiggle the ladies assets with motion control, but that’s not exactly a bullet-point addition, now is it?

At the same time, if you’re a Ninja Gaiden II die hard, you may be put off by some of the changes. The game is far less bloody–there are no more fountains of blood shooting out of the necks and bodies of your dismembered opponents. On the plus side, the game’s frame rate is very good, and things run smoothly the whole time. On the downside, your blood fountains are gone, and the pro-blood fountain demographic is sure to make noise about this blatant disregard for their needs. The higher difficulty levels are also different, as your enemies have more hit points and do more damage, but don’t seem to be that much more intelligent in their approach. Some of the additions also don’t make much sense–that Buddha statue that comes after you in the first level just sort of appears out of nowhere when you’re still fighting basic goons (the Fiends have not been awakened yet). There are also some annoying presentation issues–a few levels are very, very bland in their look (hello New York city) and the game does not account for your weapon of choice in cutscenes–Ryu apparently has time to sheath the weapon he was using to pull out the Dragon Sword he didn’t fight with after each and every boss encounter.

Blast Factor: Those who did not play the original because they do not own both consoles will most likely not notice or care about the omissions, because Sigma 2 is a smoother gameplay experience, just like Sigma was. Fans of the original are sure to be split down the middle–those who played it on all of the difficulties until their fingers cramped probably won’t mind giving this new version a go, but whether they enjoy it or not has a lot to do with their level of blood lust (or their love for polygonal breasts that jiggle on command). If you can deal without the blood, then you’ll be happy you picked up this more recent edition.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is available exclusively on the Playstation 3, and retails for $59.99. A copy of this game was given to us by the publisher for review purposes.

Sadly, all we have for you are three screens from Nintendo’s megaton announcement, but that’s all anyone has. We will definitely post more for you if we get a hold of them, but take a look at these and the trailer again (you know you want to watch it a (forty) second time). I already want to fight the enemy in the second image, though throwing enemies around doesn’t seem half bad either.

Team Ninja and Nintendo announced a partnership today on a mature-themed Metroid that will explore both Samus Aran and the Metroid universe in greater detail than ever before. The trailer looked intense and action-packed, with Samus taking on multiple enemies at a time and just ripping through them with speed and ferocity. That’s what I like to see out of a Metroid title.

There were a combination of viewpoints, with some side-scrolling, some third-person (especially during fights with larger enemies) and a few from a first-person perspective. More details will be published as we get them, so be sure to check back for updates.