Ninja Reflex
Leopard-san. The road to becoming a Ninja warrior is a long and arduous one. You need to learn to breathe underwater, jump high in the air, be one with the shadows, spit poison darts as well as master an array of weapons. But in Ninja Reflex, it seems you have entered Ninja 101 for kids. While you will learn to use the katana sword, nunchuku and shurikens, you will also need to master chopsticks to catch houseflies as well as use your hands to grab swimming koi fish and fireflies at night. It's definitely no Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Reflex, as its name suggests is essentially a collection of six casual mini-games where you get to test your reflexes. No prior knowledge of ninjutsu is needed - just press some buttons and flick the Wii remote. In the shuriken challenge, enemy ninjas, resembling target dummies, descend upon you. Aim your Wii-mote at your enemies, one at a time, press the B button the flick the Wii-mote once to release one shuriken. Rinse and repeat. Next is the housefly challenge, where you aim at buzzing flies, hold down the A and B buttons together to snap your chopsticks, then bring a fly to a spinning bowl. If you prefer fireflies to the home variety, the firefly challenge is even easier. Just press the A button as quickly as possible once a firefly appears. When catching fish, all you have to do is trace the path of the fish until it surfaces (when you see ripples) then press the A button to grab it. The katana challenge will see one to three samurais charging at you. You will need to move your Wii-mote to the top, left or right - as indicated on screen - to block the enemy attack and then flick your wrist to slash back. The nunchaku challenges are my favourite. Here, you make a figure-of-eight movement with your wii-mote to get the feel of the weapon, then flick it forward when you need to strike the boxes, water melons and bananas that your master throws at you. Your master, by the way, is an old Chinese man with a white beard who balances on one leg on a floating lotus leaf while imparting endless sermons on the mind, body and spirit. In multiplayer mode, up to four players can challenge one another in any of the six mini-games. The single lpayer version is similar except that you have to earn your "belts" one step at a time until you reach the black belt. You have to complete challenges in five mini games to be eligible to take the belt test, and upon passing the belt challenge, you get a new belt. But my favourite part of this game, which is available only in single player mode, is guided meditation where your corny master guides you through real meditation. I found it quite relaxing as he asked me to drop my shoulders, close my eyes, control my breathing, feel my stomach and chest rising and let my thoughts drift like a passing cloud. After 10 minutes, I almost fell asleep. Overall, Ninja Reflex is a fun, casual game for the family but hard-core Ninja warriors should probably look elsewhere - think Ninja Gaiden 2 with bloody dismemberment and new killing methods.