A cookie ninja? Sounds like a winner, plays like a loser.
Written: Jun 06 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The concept of the Ninjabread Man is hysterical.
Cons: The game is literally unplayable, and the story is nonexistent.
The Bottom Line: This game is horrendously unplayable: poor controls, glitchy environments, and forgettable story.
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| Guildencrantz's Full Review: |
A ginger bread man with a katana and shuriken? Sweet! The graphics on the box looked cheesy, but this is a Wii game, so I don't expect realism. Based on the simple concept of running around as a ginger bread man and fighting like a ninja I decided to rent the game.
I regret wasting my money. I also regret wasting my time. This game is about as bad as they come. I love the idea of being a candy ninja running around a candy land squashing gum drops and cupcakes while shooting bees out of the sky, but I really wish I could actually do those things (which, apparently according to the booklet and story, I should be able to do). The problem is, ultimately, the controls and the environment.
The basic controls aren't the worst I've played, but they are a bit curious to get used to. Moving and fighting takes advantage of the wiimote and nunchuck in combination to allow a number of attacks with the katana and shuriken, as well as basic jumping and flipping. Unfortunately the game seems like it was thrown together on a cheap game engine and then it wasn't tested very well because it's the environment that causes most of the problems.
When jumping the curve of the surfaces makes it extremely hard to determine where you're landing (if you don't land on a flat surface you'll fall off, there's no landing on the curved edges of mushrooms). Another huge issue is that there are a number of places where you need to jump on a spinning platform and then jump on something else: in most games your point-of-view spins with the platform you're standing on, but in this game you keep spinning in the same direction. This means that if you jump onto the spinning platform facing where you need to make your next jump you'll have to either have to spin your self, or wait until you come in a full circle before making your jump. This makes jumping from one spinning platform to another extremely irritating, as well as tracking bees (and other enemies) rather difficult.
A friend and I put in significant hours trying to like this game and finally got a hand of the controls: they didn't become completely natural, but we could get around without serious concentration. The problem was, much like the issues above with the jumping, related to the environment: we kept getting stuck. I'm not saying that we couldn't figure out what to do, I'm saying that Mr. Ninjabread would get into a crevice and wouldn't come out. If you landed between two pieces of scenery you could get stuck, if you stepped to close to a wall you could get stuck, if you did any number of things you could get stuck so that you couldn't walk or jump and would have to reset the game. Ultimately this made the game unplayable, although from what we did play (and we didn't get anywhere near completing the quests) the game isn't likely to have held my attention. This is a game where somebody had a great idea for a hook, but built the actual game as cheaply as possible and ended up with a product that's not even worth picking up in a bargain bin.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Guildencrantz
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: Boulder, CO
Reviews written: 405
Trusted by: 160 members
About Me:
My coffee cup has Smurf escape instructions in it.
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