To the anguish of splatter fans, it has been noted in the past that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2's gore has been considerably toned down when compared to the original Xbox 360 release of Ninja Gaiden 2. Quite why the title, which is still M-rated, has lost some blood in the transition from 360 to PS3, was unknown. However, Team Ninja has come out to justify its decision.

"Each game has its own concept and with Ninja Gaiden 2, the focus was on extreme violence," explains producer and director Yosuke Hayashi. "But with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, we really questioned whether violence is a necessity for a game, so we decided to move away from that trend. So the violence 'approach' is not the way we approached the development of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.

"Being able to unlock higher levels of gore would be out of kilter with the concept of the game."

Outside of difficulty, I thought the whole point of these games was to virtually drown players in extreme amounts of blood and severed limbs. It seems strange to read that a Ninja Gaiden game is not about violence and the whole thing smells a bit iffy, but that's Tecmo's line and they're sticking to it.

Maybe the next edition of Dead or Alive Xtreme will feature smaller boobs?