Here comes Ninja Warriors, the great new flight
sire from (No, it's not! Ed), er...
the rather exciting football
management game (Tell the truth, or you'll
have to type in Input Output! Ed) (Oh no,
anything but that!!) Okay, just when you
thought you'd seen more ninja games than
you could shake a shuriken at, here comes
another!
Ninja Warriors is a horizontally scrolling
chop-'em-up. The scenario isn't very original either, the
usual stuff about evil dictatorships and two
super-warriors, (robot ninjas in this case), pitched against
all the tyrant's forces. Still, this one does come from
The Sales Curve, the people who brought us the
Megagame
Silkworm. In it, your task is to hack
through six levels of soldiers, big nasty robots,
tanks, even fire-breathing punk types, to sort out the
dictator himself. You're 'packing' two swords and a
limited amount of shurikens. This stock is
replenished by killing rifle grenade soldiers and
certain other baddies so you'd be advised to use
them sparingly. The problem is that you can't help
involuntarily flinging them all over the shop as you
somersault about! It's very tricky!
What made the Taito arcade game special was
the fact that two players could simultaneously ninja
their way over three monitors for ultra-wide-screen
action. On the humble Speccy this effect has been
'reproduced' by reducing the screen area to a
horizontal strip. It's a bit like watching a movie on
TV that's been filmed in Cinemascope - you know,
when the picture ends up with a black band at the
top and bottom so it can all fit in. Still, I've seen
worse! Also, in the arcades there are nice graphical
touches when you get hit and start to look more and
more robot-like with bits of metal exposed.
Slashing baddies with your two short swords
produces a bit of gore (not for those of a nervous
disposition) and a body on the floor. Though these
touches are retained in the 16-bit versions, they
ain't in the 8-bit job. When a baddie is despatched, it
initiates a routine more akin to someone being
beamed up to the Starship Enterprise than 'popping
his clogs'. Furthermore, I was only reminded that I
was a robot by the nice 128K metallic sound when I
took a hit.
The main part of the arcade that remains is the
two player element, and this it reproduces
admirably. The nicely animated huge tank sprites,
interspersed on higher levels, are a disappointment
though. "Three times hurray!" I cried when I saw
them. "Now for some big explosions!" In fact, all
that happens is that you chop the men in the turret a
few times and then the tank trundles off!
Overall then, not really a bad game, but just more
samey stuff which doesn't make the most of its
arcade original.
| Arcade version screenshot... |
|
| Click here to view all 7 pics |
| Ratings given by other magazines |
| |
6/10
| |
|
| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
