Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

A fully integrated multiplayer campaign is heavily hinted at as probably coming down the pipe on a later date, but it's going to take time to get it to work. For something like Ninja Gaiden, co-op's a proposition as hazardous as it is tempting: with its constant dance of strength and weaknesses, every attack leaving you open to a counter somewhere else, Ryu's world is often a splattery puzzle which forces you to think about placement and space as much as which button to press next. It's a Rubik's Cube of violence, and throwing in another character could be a bit like chucking a seventh colour into the mix.

Inevitably, Team Ninja's also taking the chance to tweak the difficulty somewhat. At times, NGII appeared to have been built in collaboration with torture squads culled from history's most awful military regimes, so this time we're promised "a focus on challenge as much as difficulty". It's a typically poetic statement, and one that hopefully translates into taking a good hard look at checkpoint spacing, for starters.

Along with the fresh take on difficulty, the promise of new enemies and bosses, and "variable AI", which will see baddies reacting in a wider range of ways to your attacks, the camera's had a much-needed overhaul. Happily, it's easy to see the changes over the course of even a short playthrough. The biggest takeaway is that the game is less tempted to dither over who or what to focus on, and less eager to flip out totally when there's a lot going on at once. Framing's still a little sluggish when corners come into play, but overall it's a lot better than it used to be, and that should make a stubborn but enjoyable game a little more accessible.

Playing also reminds us that, beyond the tweaking, and even with a new character on-screen, Sigma 2 is still very much the same basic game: enemies rush breathlessly at you even from an early stage, the challenge remains steep, and the combat is entirely satisfying when you finally get into a groove. The new cast members share Ryu's speed and elegance, of course, as the game is too heavily geared towards manoeuvrability for Team Ninja to experiment with radically different styles. Whether it's Ayane or Momiji, the pace and thrust of the carnage is likeably consistent, the nuances of the move-sets presumably becoming more apparent over time.

Perhaps even more beautiful in motion on the PS3 than it was on Xbox 360, Sigma 2's also a lot less gory, enemy torsos dissipating in a magical purple mist rather than a red, gristly shower, providing more palatable slaughter for those who still want disembowelled enemies to lunge towards them over the cobbles for one last attack, but don't want them dripping with quite so much gooey matter while they do it. Team Ninja suggests it's a difference in temperament, as this version's presumably been built for a Japanese and European audience more than an American one.

On that rather tricky subject, the developer is stating that the additions Sigma 2 has brought with it are not going to make their way to Xbox 360 as DLC. The changes to level layout, camera tech and AI suggest this is probably true, but in this era of timed exclusives, announcement exclusives and flat-out exclusives that aren't exclusive at all, you can never be entirely sure. While there will doubtless be understandable bickering between platform owners and holders and endless cyclical arguments about whether we're being sold the same basic game for a second time, not much of that really matters once the steel starts to flash and the limbs start to rupture: beneath the frustrating camera and astonishing difficulty levels, Ninja Gaiden II was a great game for the most part, and Sigma 2 is simply more of it.