When people think of ridiculously difficult action games, they tend to gravitate instantly toward Ninja Gaiden. Personally, I feel Ninja Gaiden relies instead on being "annoying" rather than "challenging," but that's just me. Still, no matter how irritating the game gets, one can't deny it's a finely crafted experience, and can be quite empowering in the hands of a skilled player.

Ninja Gaiden 2 has been an Xbox 360 exclusive for well over a year, but as usual, Tecmo has been waiting in the wings to produce Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, a PS3 version of that annoying-but-somewhat-awesome sequel in which a ninja flips out and starts kicking the crap out of demons for no sensible reason.

Sporting new characters, online co-op and a number of visual tweaks, is Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 the ultimate version of Ryu Hayabusa's ridiculous journey around the world, or are Xbox 360 users missing out on nothing spectacular? Read on as we put this game through it's paces ... and jiggle some boobs with our SIXAXIS.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PS3)
Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Tecmo
Released: September 29, 2009
MSRP: $59.99

Let's get the most important thing out of the way first: The boob jiggling in this game is absolutely bloody stupid. Like two jello cups in the wind, they barely even move and the way do move is kind of creepy and unsettling. Tecmo gets points for the creativity of its sexism, but the delivery leaves a lot to be desired. That's not even considering the fact that one of the women whose breasts you can manipulate is supposed to be fourteen-years-old.

The jiggly boobs is but one of the aesthetic changes made to Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the most dramatic of which is the severe toning down of the gore. In the original NG2, players could paint the floors and walls in the claret of their enemies, as rent limbs and decapitated necks would spray beautiful fountains of the stuff in all directions. For a game that was taking itself more seriously than it should have, the buckets of blood served as a dose of much-needed silliness and helped to give the game a sense of gratuitous charm.

I don't know who Tecmo thinks it's kidding, but removing the blood does not make for a classier game. In actual fact, it makes the experience feel so much more lacking. You wouldn't think that the reduction of blood would really have a huge impact on one's enjoyment, but in a game like Ninja Gaiden 2, where an arm is torn off every few seconds, the lack of blood directly corresponds to a lack of satisfaction. Simply put, this game suffers through the very poor decision to reduce the gore.

It's still there, but only as minor splashes and stains on the weaponry. Much of the blood has been replaced by inappropriate purple light that shines from wounds in a very unrewarding manner. It just doesn't feel as good as it once did to perform an execution on a prone enemy ninja when he's vomiting purple all over the place. Compared to original version, this PS3 remake has considerably less character.

Less character, but more characters. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 adds to the main story of the original game with three brand new chapters featuring a trio of well-endowed, barely-clad female warriors. Interspersed throughout the main story, these new levels are a welcome break from Ryu's adventure and provide some interestingly fresh moves, weapons and abilities to get to grips with. While the new levels are welcome, they are certainly nothing spectacular, simply thrown into the story with recycled bosses and environments. It's fun to play as them, but you never get to play with them very much at all.

Also new to NG2 is the "Team Play" mode. This is a series of arena battles designed for online co-op play (or offline with an AI partner). This is actually a very fun addition to the game, although I detected a bit of lag throughout the online battles I fought. When the online isn't lagging, co-op is great and well worth trying out, especially if you're better than your partner and can show off your selection of moves and character costumes while he's just hammering one button with his puny little sword ... before he gets himself killed and wastes your time.

Outside of these changes, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is business as usual. It still looks absolutely stunning, and the combat flows as impressively as always. The same memorable battles are there, and the same annoyances such as endless rocket launchers, tiny little biting fish, and cheap shots are all in abundance. PS3 loyalists who have not played the original version will be satisfied with the magnitude of weapons thrown at Ryu as he progresses, and feel accomplished when they battle toward the final confrontation with the Archfiend. It's still an incredibly solid game, although I personally have never found this series as much fun as, say, Devil May Cry.

There are a few technical irritations with the game, sadly. Despite a mandatory install, the loading times in NG Sigma 2 are frequent and more lengthy than they should be. It also takes an inordinate amount of time to enter and exit the shop screen. Even pausing the game can be a bit laggy at times. If a game is forcing data on my PS3 hard drive, I expect it to run smoothly and efficiently. The wait between screens simply isn't acceptable.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is worth checking out for PS3 owners who like hardcore action games and have never played the Xbox 360 version. The new additions, however, simply aren't worth replaying the game for if you have the original version, and the removal of the blood has done the game a significant disservice. If you only have a 360 and were worried that Tecmo was gypping you, don't worry. You've not really missed out on anything important. It's still a really good game and a worthy addition to the PS3 library, but it's not quite as rewarding as the original and while the online co-op is a very notable feature, the game's new toys just aren't enough to make this a truly must-have title.

Score: 7.5 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

Remember playing the Monopoly Board Game when you were a child? Then when it came out on PS2, that was just like WOW! (well, maybe not). Now it has hit the internet, and the entire world is playing. Yes, this is Monopoly using Google Maps.

The game is called Monopoly City Streets and the objective of the game is to buy streets around the world, make some money through rent and sabotage other users' properties and streets.

Before I get started on how to play the game, let me give you some background information. It has been live since the 9th of September. It is an online game that loads entirely in your browser. There is nothing to download and you only need to register in order to play it. However, on the 11th of September, the Monopoly City Streets Blog announced that they will be restarting the game in about a week's time. This is to ensure that every knows what they are doing and how to use it. So it is best to join, get the feel of the game, and then when it goes live, you can rule a suburb, city or a country. Also, the game will only be active until 31st January 2010, but they don't know what they will do to the game afterwards. So get your hands on it while you still can!

Playing the Game

To play the game, simple go to this website and click on 'Play'.

Then just find a street you would like to buy, anywhere in the world. Since the game has been running for a while, all the good streets are taken. So find an area that you like, and expand from there. Most of the world is playable, but there are a few exceptions.

Since I am located in Melbourne, I am going to start my street purchases there. The streets that are blue have been purchased, but you can offer a deal to buy them from the current owner, obviously it will cost a bit more. Also note that some streets are not available to be purchased as you can see in the image below, Collins St. cannot be purchased.

So since Melbourne is too busy for me, I am going to purchase a road that is a bit out of town. You may also have noticed that we have not registered yet. You can do this when you purchase your first street. I am going to purchase Springvale Rd. So just find it on the map, then click on the street name in the box on the right.

Once you click on the street you want to purchase, a registration box will appear. You also get M$3,000,000 in Monopoly money to spend.

Now, I want to build on the street. Since I am not rich, I will start of small. Click on the street, then select 'Build Property', then select what type of building you want to build. I am just going to buy a small City Centre Cottage. The game will give you options on where to build the house, then just select it on the map.

Fortunately, I still have heaps of cash left. I am going to buy another street in the area. Click on the 'Buy Street' button on the bottom toolbar (it looks like a pile of money), find a street and repeat the process again. I found a good long stretch of road and now I am going to develop it.

As I said before, click on the street, select 'Build Property' and select your what you want to build.

Your buildings will now appear. As you progress through the game, just like the Monopoly Board Game, you can also get Chance Cards. Bugger! Oh well.

I hope that I have inspired you to play. It is quite fun, but remember, everything I have done today will be lost when the game resets. I better get in early and buy up big when it starts again in a week's time.

If you want to play, just go to the main page, start buying and building an earning. Also read the FAQs and the Game Rules.

Are you a fan of Monopoly? Will you play this game? What streets have you purchased? Let us know.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

Darkest of Days is the worst first-person shooter of this generation.

There it is. This attempt to be a clever, interesting FPS experience is, without a shadow of a doubt, the single worst first-person shooter to appear in the past five years. It is a game for which hyperbole is perfectly acceptable. A game so awful that simply writing about it cannot do it justice. The game isn't simply bad; it's the lowest of the low, a game so bad that its very existence defies all sense of reason and logic.

So, what did we think of it? You won't know until you read our review!

You know how you can tell if a game is bad? Look at the Achievements list. If you see a full retail game with thirteen Achievements worth several hundred points apiece, you can get a good idea of just how little the developers cared when they made the thing. Darkest of Days is the perfect example. Right down to its very Achievements, the game sucks.

The premise had potential, but it's clumsily implemented and written by people who lack the required skill to make it work. You start the game as one of General Custer's soldiers who is due to die at the battle of Little Big Horn, but just before you meet your doom, you are whisked away by time travelers. Within five minutes, you are drafted into a Quantum Leap-style organization that is fixing historical mistakes, and even though you should be completely freaking out and struggling to cope with the crazy technological magic that's happening, you accept this role without question and are suddenly hopping through time, using weapons you've never seen before, let alone trained with, and dealing with history that, from your perspective, hasn't even happened yet.

I can suspend disbelief for my videogames. I've played Metal Gear Solid games and can accept some of the most ridiculous plots out there. However, do not tell me that a Civil War fighter can go from nearly dying during his own time to shooting shit up in World War I after being transported to the future within the hour, and be perfectly okay with that. It's not exactly refined of me to say it, but this game is stupid. Straight-up stupid.

Despite how bad it is, the plot is pretty much all this game has going for it, complete with its embarrassingly inane dialog and sub-par voice actors. As bad as the story is, the gameplay is far, far worse. This is the kind of FPS action I'd barely find acceptable on an N64 or PlayStation, let alone the Xbox 360.

Most of the game is spent walking. That's what you do. You walk from one place to another. Sometimes you can get through a chapter without needing to fire more than a clip of bullets. Often there are periods of walking that last so long that there are checkpoints between two empty distances, where all you've done is walk. Mid-walk checkpoints. Seriously. The walking sections aren't helped either by the ludicrous amount of illogical invisible walls and equally invisible "mission areas" that cause a 'game over' should you step behind an unseen line of death.

Compared to the shooting, however, the monotonous walking is a blessed relief. Combat is horrible, and that's putting it kindly. The developers thought they'd be clever by putting period weaponry into the game, without caring about the fact that period weaponry sucks, and it's not fun to play with a single-shot musket that takes forever to reload. Sure, it's historically accurate, but it's not enjoyable in the least, which is why you don't get Civil War shooters in the first place. Weapons are hard to aim, with obscuring sights attached to most of them, sporting a sluggish rate of fire and a small ammo clip. As the levels progress, you will get access to a few more "futuristic" weapons, but they are barely much better, with not one firearm standing out from the general shooter weapons you can get in any FPS. You can also upgrade the weaponry with a slapdash and rudimentary upgrade system, but you'll barely notice the difference.

The frustrating shooting is compounded by the fact that it's nearly impossible to distinguish allies from enemies, thanks in no small part to the muddy graphics and the fact that most of the game is daubed in a grotesque shade of brown. What's more, both allies and enemies alike will run around the battlefields like headless chickens, possessing no rhyme or reason in their random actions and contributing to the clusterfuck that is every single level of this piss-poor excuse for a videogame.

Of course, it wouldn't be a bad FPS without graphical glitches, and there are plenty of those. From character models that stutter and freeze, to players sticking to scenery, to horrendous framerate issues that flare up whenever the game tries to do anything even partway epic, Darkest of Days is packed full of every technical failure under the Sun, making this game the complete package of feckless garbage.

Every now and then, the game tries to be interesting by throwing enemies at you that are surrounded by a blue haze. The blue haze indicates historically important characters who must be kept alive. You can incapacitate them by shooting their legs or throwing stun grenades at them, but if you shoot them, you get less upgrade points between levels. While in theory it's an interesting idea, their inconvenient placement and the messy chaos of battle means that they're little more than frequent annoyances who are often best ignored.

The more I suffered through Darkest of Days, the more a test of mental stamina it became. I have not been this angry, confused and downright disgusted by a videogame in a long time. I am an atheist, but I was praying to gods that I didn't even believe in for sanctuary from this torture. Every level I beat I hoped would be the last, but as soon as I ended one stage, two would pop up in its place. Darkest of Days is like a Hydra in that regard. A Hydra made out of shit.

Not once, during the entire course of the game, is the experience ever fun. Not once. The game only threatens to be perhaps marginally interesting one time and one time only, during the World War II level where you are being marched through a Nazi POW camp. However, the frequent slowdown and glitching animations throughout the scene effectively eliminate any sense of atmosphere that could have been built, and things are soon back to normal with the game being excruciatingly awful within two minutes.

I simply don't know how games this bad get made. Did anybody test it? Did anybody care? Did anybody stop to think about how much fun it is to be shot at by brown enemies hiding in brown grass that can't be seen through the scope of your brown gun? Did nobody question how anybody was supposed to enjoy firing a single-shot musket at endless swathes of cloned enemies who had plenty of cover while the player is forced into the open? Did anybody not think to let the player absorb more than a few shots before falling down dead? Did anybody not wonder if the lack of halfway decent anti-aliasing might hurt people's eyes?

There is no excuse for this game. While the lack of budget is highly obvious, the lack of intelligence and design skill has no justification. A low budget cannot explain a game that is mostly walking from one point to another, interspersed with the worst FPS combat yet seen on a high-definition machine, with weapons that should never, ever be included in a videogame. Darkest of Days is unacceptable.

Please do not play this. It is not just bad, it's painful. Sometimes a bad game is worth playing just to see how horrid it is, but I do not advise you try such an experiment with Darkest of Days. It is capable of ruining an entire evening, and I am actually ashamed that I now have an Achievement on my Xbox Live profile that reads, "Completed Darkest of Days." That is a stain against my name that shall be carried to the grave. I have nothing but a disgusted, spiteful contempt for this affront to the first-person shooter genre and this embarrassment to gaming.

Darkest of Days is the worst first-person shooter of this generation.

Score: 1.0 -- Epic Fail (1s are the lowest of the low. There is no potential, no skill, no depth and no talent. These games have nothing to offer the world, and will die lonely and forgotten.)

Metroid Prime Trilogy is quickly becoming known as the Wii's equivalent to The Orange Box, and if you've played The Orange Box, you know how big a compliment that is. Thing is, I know there are a lot of you who still don't know about what makes Metroid Prime Trilogy so great. These three games (now available on one disk with Wii-tailored controls) tend to be either adored or ignored. I'd wager that's because most people see the word "Metroid" and "first person" and assume that immediately know what the Prime games are all about.

If you are one of those people and you haven't played a Metroid Prime game yet, why not hit the jump and see what really makes these games tick? It is quite possible that you are missing out on some of the best puzzle/action/platforming of your life.