Never has clicking the Buy Now button ever felt so empty yet exciting at the same time. Don’t get me wrong. I think PlayStation Plus will be pretty sweet, but there just wasn’t that much bang for the buck in this debut.

As I said I would on the podcast, I purchased a one year subscription to PlayStation Network’s new premium pay-us service PlayStation Plus. It was perhaps only an hour or so since it was posted on the PlayStation Store that I excitedly download firmware 3.40, scratched some unknown gray stuff off some PSN cards, typed in some codes, and bought my way into PS Store Shopper: Elite status.

I want Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (NGS2) is a really fun action game. The gameplay is fast paced, smoothly animated, and the combat feels very satisfying. It’s also a lot easier to tell where you’re supposed to go now. Thank you for that, developers at Tecmo and Team Ninja. These games are about combat, not about finding your way.

My biggest complaint about Ninja Gaiden, the Xbox release, was that there were certain stages that were mazes. The first tunnel stage had me wandering around  for hours in order to trigger some convoluted mechanism that would open some door and let me get on my way. There was even a hidden passage, necessary hidden passage, that could only be seen after you had already accidentally found it. NGS2, so far from what I’ve seen doesn’t have stuff like that. Instead, holding the shoulder button for a bit automatically turns the camera to face in the direction you need to go.

When faced with NGS2 I think the first thing most people probably ask themselves is, "Do I really want to spend time/money on a game which is part of a series of games that are known to be extremely difficult?" While I never found the first Ninja Gaiden or Ninja Gaiden Sigma to be unwinnably hard, I think this exact thought crossed my mind with NGS2. For those of you who bypassed this game for these reasons, you should come back and take another look.

NGS2 is a refined version of Ninja Gaiden 2. Part of that statement means that the game is easier than its original 360 release, and rather than see that as a negative, like most hardcore gamers would, I see it as Tecmo and Team Ninja trying to get more people to play their games. For those of you who like the challenge of a good game, NGS2 still has some pretty difficult Trophies to obtain, but now it’s also a game for people who just like cool ninja imagery but have never had the skill to enjoy Ninja Gaiden. This is a good thing. People shouldn’t be afraid to play games because they’re too difficult. There are already plenty of other reasons they wouldn’t want to play a game.

Hey, we’ve got a little while before this starts.

I’m basically expecting to see a lot of games, a lot of expansion on the currently available products, like Home, and some surprises as well.

• That’s it! See you later.
• LIVE God of War III demo! The ingame graphics are amazing. Like the other game, it started on Kratos’s face, but this time, it looked pre-rendered. It wasn’t. Release coming March 2010.
• GT5 Tease! Not much is shown, but it’s clear there’s car damage. WRC and NASCAR are both mentioned in the trailer, by name, so it seems that Polyphony Digital is embracing the total “car lifestyle” direction.
• The Last Guardian. This is “TRICO” Trailer. It looks like the one that’s been online already, though not as rough around the edges. We see many scenes of a boy and a giant, yet cute, beast. There’s running, there’s jumping, there’s throwing barrels at evil looking guards. Looks very stylish.
• Mod Nation Racers Announced. The next game for the Play, Create, Share movement.
  It’s cartoony looking characters in a “Cars” looking, very detailed environment. It’s a kart racer, with weapons and powerups.
  Beyond character creation and car creation, car tracks are created by users as well. Making the tracks is as easy as driving over terrain. It seems far simpler than LBP. Not less powerful, just easier to make something quickly to play. Nice.
  It’s coming in 2010.
• Disney Interactive Studios Teams with LBP. Jack Sparrow, Mr. Incredible, and more costumes coming to LittleBigPlanet.
• PSEye Motion Controller. They’re showing a wand with a colored ball on the top. The Eye can track the wand and the color of the light in the ball. Tech demos here. We see some typical casual stuff, hitting balls in 3D space, etc.
  Clearly, this is a hit back at Natal, showing how accurate the wand tracking is and emphasizing that often one still needs something to hold, rather than Natal’s “nothing to hold” approach.”
  How’s it look? Pretty nice actually. Capable enough. It’s to be seen what software releases to support this in Spring 2010.
• FFXIV Only on PS3! Looks like Square Enix’s new MMO. Wow.
• FFXIII Trailer. Game Coming in the Spring! It looks amazing, as you can imagine. New environments are shown. It’s in English and it’s a story trailer. The voice acting sounds alright. You’ll need to see it yourself.
• Assassin’s Creed 2 Gameplay Demo! It’s looking much more interesting than Assassin’s Creed 1. We see some new tools such as the flying machine, double assassin blades, smoke bombs. There are 30 weapons to use. 6 exclusive weapons are unlocked through connecting Assassin’s Creed 2 to Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines on the PSP.
• Rockstar North’s Exclusive for PS3: Agent. No info.
• Upcoming PS3 Titles Trailer: Uncharted 2, inFAMOUS, White Knight Chronicles, Batman, Madden, Brutal Legends, FFXIII, Dirt 2, Ghostbusters, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Wet, Mafia II, new Buzz, Saw, King of Fighters, Tekken 6, Ice Age, Overlord II, Red Faction Guerilla, Heavy Rain, Battlefield 1943, Pixel Junk Shooter, Trash Panic, Critter Cruncher, Katamari Forever, Fat Princess, Zombie Apocalypse, DC Online, LBP, The Saboteur, Bioshock 2, Ratchet & Clank, Fight Night Round 4, God of War III, and many many more that I missed.
• Talking PSN. Home. 100,000 units of Street Fighter IV products downloaded from Home. More spaces coming. Trailer.
• PSP Titles Trailer. LittleBigPlanet, Jak & Daxter, MotorStorm Arctic Edge, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, SOCOM, Monster Hunter, Soul Calibur (a new character!), Persona, Eye of Judgement, echochrome, Tiger Woods, Madden, Hot Shots Tennis, Fat Princess!, Star Wars Battlefront, something that looks like the Petz series, Rock Band, too much to tell. Plus, there are no titles, so there are some games I don’t even recognize. There were at least two RPG’s I’ve never seen before. A fighter too.
• A New Resident Evil Coming to PSP. Next year.
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. For PSP, being made by the MGS4 team, it’s a true Metal Gear sequel. Takes place 15 years after the events of MGS3. Kojima intends to utilize the PSP’s full feature suite. Here’s a trailer!
  We start with some stock footage of the Cold War, followed my Big Boss running through various wooded environments. These events lead to the rise of Outer Heaven.
  In a typical Kojima twist, there’s some weirdness. We see 4 Big Bosses or Snakes(?) Two get in a box together.
  Looks pretty good for the PSP. Coming 2010.
• All future PSP releases with both be digital and UMD released.
• GT on PSP! 800 cars, 35 tracks, full 60 FPS, basically, a full sized Gran Turismo experience on the PSP. 4 player adhoc. Trading and sharing of cars is also supported through adhoc. It’s supposed to make gathering all the cars in the game that much easier.
  Meeting with friends to do this adhoc trading and racing is part of the experience, so it’s all but confirmed that this won’t have infrastructure mode. A trailer for the games plays. It’s difficult to tell if that’s in game or not.
  Gran Turismo PSP is coming October 1st to launch with PSP Go!
• New Partners for Video Content: G4, Showtime, and More!
• PS Video Store is now natively supported on the PSP. Starting today.
• PSP Go is $249.99 in the Fall. October 1st, to be Exact.
• Development tools will be 80% cheaper for PSP.
• SenseMe. New music analyzer for PSP’s of both types. It’ll look at your music collection and select music for you. Hm.
• Media Go Replacing Media Manage for PSP. That’s great! It’s supposed to be much easier to use.
• This is heading toward the PSP Go. Officially Announced. It’s got no UMD drive. It’s not going to replace the PSP-3000. We’ve heard this. It’s 50% smaller, 40% lighter.
• Kaz Hirai!
• Dissidia Final Fantasy Coming, Followed by Assassin’s Creed on PSP.
• MAG. They’re doing a LIVE 256 player battle demonstration. 8 people are there at E3, the rest are testers at the various studio locations.
  The squad commander is using various skills, marking targets, calling in a UAV.
  They’re taking a bunker. There is a Call of Duty style XP counter for each kill. To destroy objective, they need to place charges and then guard them. Kinda like Killzone 2.
  Taking out an anti aircraft turret has allowed them to bring in mobile spawn points (choppers).
  Full 256 player battles will be on the show floor. Why aren’t we there?
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. “Sets the new bar for goal pushing.” Beta starts tonight! Now, we’re getting a single player demo. Here we go.
  We join Drake, looking at a palm tree. The colors are extremely vibrant. Looking down over the city looks incredible. We see some cinematic camera work as Drake traverses the upper parts of the city.
  Helicopter! Intense firefights break out. Some “shoot even while hanging and climbing” is shown. Also, creating cover with overturned tables. Grenade throwing is much faster now.
  Okay! The whole environment was moving as a building collapses with Drake and Chloe inside of it! Very impressive physics simulations going on there.
• inFAMOUS got great reviews. One of 35 exclusive titles coming to PlayStation.
• Latin America sales are doing well.
• Starting off with PS2. Good sales after the price drops. Outsold next gen systems in April.
• Jack Tretton takes the stage. He seems… funnier.
• It has begun. Dramatic trailer of PS3 games. There’s a lot of them.