I have RS:V for the 360 and LOVE the game. I dislike NG, as I got annoyed with camera angles and it's just not my type of game.

Ooh. Dissent. Someone set up the Thunderdome. There can be only one opinion for my purposes.

Ninja Gaiden is an amazing game. The weird camera angles are really the only bad thing about the game, so don't let that dissuade you. The game is challenging though, and most "casual" gamers never get past the second level boss, so be warned about that. The game is never "cheap" hard though; if you are having trouble, it is just because you lack the skill so to speak. It does have a somewhat steep learning curve, but once you master it, you will truly feel like a ninja.

Rainbow Six: Vegas is a good game, but Ninja Gaiden is better. Rainbow Six is not a stealth game like Metal Gear at all, so I don't know where you got that idea from. Rainbow Six is a tactical shooter. You go in and kill everyone; you do not avoid combat at all like in a stealth game. Rainbow Six is basically a SWAT-like game. Terrorists take over a location, and you and your team go in and take them down.

I guess I said stealth because the last Rainbow Six game that I played was stealthy. And I kind of associate tactical shooters with stealth games in my head even though they're dissimilar. Same genre, different flavor.

How similar is the control/camera of Ninja Gaiden to something like Devil May Cry?

I always thought that the Rainbow Six games were squad based tactical shooters while the Splinter Cell games were the more stealthy type games.

Tactical and Stealth tend to be confused a lot. Mostly people consider Stealth where you sneak around and don't just run and gun it. You can't exactly run and gun it in most Rainbow Six games, so the association is there, but the correct term is Tactical since you aren't really going all ninja-style of their asses.

But yeah, picking that apart is a bit anal. FWIW, I don't consider Ninja Gaiden to be Stealth... in fact the only true "Stealth" games out there seem to be Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell (though both have been leaning toward more action lately.)

Bah. that's where I was off. I'd confused Rainbow Six with Splinter Cell. I've never actually played a Rainbow Six game then. Ha. So I know nothing.

I would say they are pretty similar. The camera in DMC is a little bit better. Sometimes, the camera in NG can't keep up with Ryu and he will end up off-screen every once in a while. Other times, the camera will be zoomed in too close, and you won't be able to see more than a foot or so around Ryu. All in all, it isn't a game-breaking deal, and you get used to it after a while.

Pretty much. Rainbow Six games in the past have had one or two stealth missions per game where you objective is avoid combat and setting off alarms, but overall Rainbow Six is a shooter. 99% of the time, you are killing every terrorist and not worrying about alarms going off.

I really don't think tactical shooters and stealth games are even close to the same genre.

Stealth = hiding in shadows and avoiding combat and alarms
Tactical shooter = killing everyone but going at a slower pace than a typical "Doom clone", using flash/smoke grenades and other tactics to disorient your enemies

No one ever said NG was stealth. NG has as much stealth as the typical Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Thief
Tenchu
Hitman

are all very much stealth games...

Another vote for NGS. its an amazing game. And ninja dog difficulty makes the game much more manageable.

taffer <- win
RichC2 <- lose

The Ninja Dog option makes NGS a winner, me thinks. Now I just have to find a moment to get over to TRU now. They're all in such inconvenient locations. Plus I have to hope they'll exchange Madden for NHL 2K8 in September.

How loud do PS3s run? How hot? How's the repair history been in the first 9 months?

Compared to the 360 - Very quiet.
THey run pretty warm - but it's vented quite well - so no enclosed spaces.

according to Sony, they've got a 0.2% failure rate...

.2% seems bogus at first glance, but I will admit it seems to be very durable hardware. My PS3 is a full time DVD, Blu-ray and gaming system in my living room and I have put at least 500 hours (mostly movie watching and Folding) on it without a hiccup.

I have to agree... Ive been using it a ton lately and no problems what so ever. As much as I wanted too at first, I can't really say anything negative about it.

Except for "where are all the freaking games at?"

I agree with the posts above mine. My PS3 has run without a single issue since I bought it. I haven't heard any reports of updates bricking it and the BD drive they use seems to be stable. It gets plenty of use too. Ever since the upscaling update it has been my main DVD player.

My PS3 seems to run rather loud (though not as loud as the 360), especially when playing BluRays, it seems. Or maybe I just notice it more then.

Maybe it needs more ventilation, I cannot hear any fan noise at all from mine.

0.2% isn't too unreasonable. My old job we released new hardware which prior had around a 5% failure. We released the new hardware and had it under 0.05% after a year - which resulted in a sweet bonus. :-)

I attempted to play online tonight with NCAA '08 and both times, early on in the 2nd half I get the notice "connection has been lost". I was playing my brother and our internet was working. Is this problem related to EA servers?

I've also noticed once my PS3 is powered on, after about a minute or two, it'll say error timed out and I get signed out of the PS network. Once I sign back in, everything is okay. I have a wired connection.

This happens to me as well. I'm not sure what the issue is. I wonder if it is a firmware issue.

I had issues like that also. I have a Linksys WRT54G router. I moved my PS3 and use Wireless and it seems to work BETTER now amazingly. I can say update the firmware at the very least.

Not that anyone was exceptionally curious about what I finally picked up... but the answer to the great NGS and R6:V dilemma was none of the above. Two TRUs in my area had neither NGS or R6. They didn't even have Ninja Gaiden in their computer. The clerk didn't even believe that it was out.

So I went with Resistance and will trade Madden in for NHL 08 or 2K8 in September. I have no patience for Madden anymore. I'm ready to bring back Mutant League Football. I think I'll probably keep Resistance since it keeps getting comparisons to the Medal of Honor series which I enjoyed quite a bit... though I haven't played one for a number of years. Though, I'd still like to pick up Ninja Gaiden at some point.

Thanks for everyone's input. I appreciated the help. I just haven't paid much attention to the PS3 releases prior to my big purchase. Now I just need to wait for my new Sony 60a3000 to be delivered. I'm waiting to christen the PS3 along with my new TV.