Next to zombies, ninja are the gaming world’s favourite antagonists. It seems we never get tired of dispatching those cloaked assassins, and never ask them any questions before shooting (or shuriken-ing) them dead. Perhaps it comes with the territory of being an ancient Japanese symbol of espionage and mystery, but ninja are fair game no matter how you kill them.
So it’s good to see a mobile game developer making a concerted effort to add a bit of extra dynamism to the way in which we’re able to take out these troublesome shadow warriors in Ninja Strike, which boasts motion control as its defining feature.
Ninja Strike has had much of the thunder it would otherwise have been due stolen, what with the likes of the iPhone and similar high-end devices all coming packed to the input/output port with accelerometers and motion sensitive sensors.
Being a mobile game, however, Ninja Strike doesn’t have the luxury of dedicated motion sensitivity add-ons, and has come up with a most ingenious method of interfacing the game with your physical movements.
By turning the handset’s camera on (the camera being the only technical stipulation of your handset) the game is controlled by watching for a movement input through the CCD. Simple when you think about it, but still a remarkably ingenious method of bringing mobile gaming in line with the likes of the iPhone.
In good kung fu b-movie style, your sensei is kidnapped by a gang of urban ninja, and it’s up to you to strike back at them and decimate their clan with extreme prejudice.
Viewed from a first-person perspective, waving your hand under the camera (shuriken throwing style is best for added drama, though any movement seems to work) chucks a deadly throwing star as your hand swings uniformly from side to side on the screen.
It’s a game mechanic very similar to the bonus level on the classic Shinobi, for any retro gamers out there.
Ninja leap from the scenery about the screen, so hitting them with a shuriken is simply a matter of timing and a swift hand. As the game progresses, they’ll throw stars back at you, which can be blocked by raising your metal bracer-clad arm with button ‘5’. Take out an ever increasing number of assassins, and it’s on to the next level.
Unfortunately, that’s about all there is to Ninja Strike. Without the unique, and briefly mesmerising motion controls (something you’ll be unlikely to want to use on the bus, mind you) this would struggle to qualify for a mini-game, never mind a standalone title.
There’s also something amusingly cheesy about the way a ninja leaps from a bush, then stands there twiddling a staff without making any move to do anything – other than provide an empty victory when you put a piece of jagged metal in his neck.
EyeSight Technologies gets an A+ for effort in terms of creating a system to bring the mobile platform one step closer to the iPhone, but Ninja Strike plays out as more of a demo for this new control method than an engaging game.
Ninja Strike
While it’s very easy to be impressed by the ingenious use of the handset’s camera as a motion-sensitive input device, the gameplay is shallower than a Japanese garden’s rock pool. Without more depth to the action, this new system will likely prove to be a very brief fad
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.