Hands-on with Smash Bros-inspired Vita brawler Atomic Ninjas

Here's all you need to know about the plot of Atomic Ninjas. You're a Russian chap in charge of a nuclear facility. Something goes wrong, there's a nuclear holocaust, and the fallout seemingly causes all survivors to turn into ninjas. Those ninjas then fight one another, for reasons I've yet to understand.

This is a good premise for the story of a video game.

The whole package is even more promising when you see that Grip Games is taking some of its cues from Super Smash Bros. and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and streamlining the moveset for faster and (theoretically) more accessible play.

The early code we had access to had spotty presentation. For one thing, the audio is currently absolutely terrible. The music's fine, but speech samples repeat far too often, and the quality of the sound effect recordings are all over the place.

It's not a bad-looking title though. The character art is especially handsome, all simple shapes and thick lines to fill in the details. Atomic Ninjas has a comic book tone that blends well with the light-hearted action and story.

The Very Last Samurai, the Old Monk, Sergei the Ninja, and the rest of the cast look distinct in the menus, but during gameplay you'll mostly tell them apart based on their primary colour.

The graphics are chunky, colourful, and - for the most part - move very smoothly. This blockiness works in the game's favour: the more you play it the more the visuals melt away and you find yourself concentrating on strategies.

Atomic Ninjas is focused on multiplayer, which is played either in the same room or over the internet, with up to four people. I managed to round-up three pals to give it a try, and I was largely impressed.

If you're a beginner, you'll need to check out the Ninja Academy, as the game takes a little while to figure out its base mechanics. In this way, it's not ideal for the kind of instant action desired after a night in the pub. That said, once you do know the (ninja) ropes, the play allows for a good deal of strategy.

Your ninja is suitably nimble. You can jump and double-jump around the closed environments, and using items to move about even faster. The Grappling Hook allows you to swing about with gay abandon, the Jump Claw launches you from floor to ceiling to wall like Spider-Man, and you can strap the Rocket to your back for use as a makeshift jet pack.

Though stealth isn't the game's main forté, you can also hide behind scenery, or stand perfectly still, to become hidden.

For the most part though, the focus is on combat. Again your abilities come in the form of items to use: Shuriken are used as projectiles, there's an area of effect Punch move, and a Force Grab that latches onto crates scattered about the level. No weapon in your arsenal will kill an opponent, you instead need to use them to knock bad guys into hazards.

You'll quickly find weapons that work best for you. The Shuriken and Jump Claw became my favoured combo. I'd latch onto a ceiling, firing down Shuriken. You can bounce Shuriken off walls too, which allowed me to hunker down in spots and provide cover for my team mate. However, whenever I came up against an opponent with the Punch move, they would deflect my attacks, leaving me in a jam. There's a nice balance here and nothing feels too over-powered.

Atomic Ninjas is definitely best played with human opponents, as the AI of the bots is a little suspect. I found that they were just a little too accurate with their shots, though when it came to completing objectives they would occasionally bug out and forget what they were meant to be doing.

The basics of play are all here, then, but there's one last question mark hanging over the release.

Multiplayer has all sorts of modes to keep things varied, all of which are based on standards such as deathmatch, capture the flag, and domination, but the single player offering is minimal. There's little reason to play by yourself, practise your moves, learn the nuances of the weapons, and become the best ninja.

There's plenty of time for a handful of improvements to be made of course, as Atomic Ninjas comes to PlayStation Vita in late Autumn 2013. Set your expectations to "cautiously optimistic", and make sure to stick with Pocket Gamer for the full review.