I-Ninja review (PS2)

If Tarzan was ever drafted in to decide the name of a game, then 'I-Ninja' is the sort of thing that we could expect. It makes you wonder where the Japanese giants would be if they had ever released games called 'I-Plumber' or 'I-Spikey Blue Thing'.

Upon switching this game on you would be forgiven for thinking that it was developed in Japan. After all, it has that slightly mental Japanese-gone-bonkers look and feel about it right from the start. You would be wrong in such an assumption though - it was developed by none other than Brit boys Argonaut. The very same Argonaut who came up with Starglider all those years ago.

Suped Up

This is no space based shooter though. What we have here is a little ninja with a large head trying to avenge the destruction of his clan at the hands of Master O-Dor and his army of Ranx. Looks like they got Tarzan to do all the jokes as well...

I-Ninja is quite a simple game. There are no cryptic puzzles to work out and the levels themselves are all rather small. Whilst this in itself is not automatically a bad thing, it does mean that there is going to have to be some significantly decent gameplay packed in to keep people interested. Each time you go into a level you are told what the objective is, though it isn't actually necessary because it is obvious what you have to do each time.

The levels basically consist of getting from one end to another without dying and they are all very linear. As you progress through the game you will be given extra weapons and more powerful attacks as well being able to open up more levels.

In a graphical sense, this game is slightly hard to judge. Everything looks very clean and smooth and the frame rate never dips, but that is because there is just so very little actually there. I am sure that the developers would say that they were going after a particular 'style', but I am not entirely convinced. Whilst the game certainly does have a particular look about it, that really doesn't escape from the fact that the graphics are very simplistic. Most of the environments are small, enclosed areas with very little going on. It's not that the game looks bad it just doesn't look very impressive and it isn't even as if the animation is outstanding either.

Quiet my Ninja!

Sonically the game is OK, though again nothing spectacular. The voice acting is well done and the Sensei in particular is rather impressive. A nice touch is when you skip what he is saying he makes a 'ssssh!' sound as if he is telling you to be quiet. The sound effects are rather cartoony which fits with the game and the music is not exactly something that will have you tapping your feet in delight.

In all honesty, how do you judge a game like this? The developers clearly wanted to create a simple but fun platforming game that incorporates some old-skool gameplay. And for the most part they have done just that - unfortunately it just isn't enough. Whilst you can do things like run along the walls, swing on your chain or skid along a rail it is all 'scripted' and never takes you by surprise. There are also many sections that simply involve jumping from one moving platform to another which gets irritating when you have been doing it for the past fifteen years already.

There are some nice touches like when you have to take part in a boxing match against a huge robot or take control of a gun and destroy waves of boats and planes, but it is all very simplistic and just goes on for too long. There are some Super Monkey Ball style moments as well, but again it just goes on for too long. In some ways this game feels as if it was originally planned for the GBA, but they decided they wanted to do everything in 3D instead of 2D.

Killed by Tedium

Even the combat can get a bit tedious and annoying. You will usually be confronted by about three or four enemy robots and killing them is just a matter of swinging your sword a few times, jumping over them and then swinging your sword again. Repeat until they are all dead. After a while I just avoided them unless they had to be killed to open a door.

In some ways the final score I have given this game might seem slightly harsh to some people. It isn't a bad game at all, and is fairly entertaining - but it is also very simplistic and has a tendency to annoy you and get repetitive fairly quickly. It certainly isn't a game that I could sit and play for long sessions at a time. At the end of the day this game was simply unable to keep me interested for very long and is actually quite a step backwards in the 3D platforming genre.