Producer: CRL
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Colin Ajayi'Obe

After many years abroad, Ninja Hamster returns to the village of his birth. But his birthplace has been overrun by Sinister Rat, Loony Lobster, Ninja Monkey, the Lizard Of Death and their nefarious crew of mean mammals, crazy crustaceans, belligerent bees and alligatorial alliterations.

Skilled in the ways of the ninja, our hero goes into battle, teeth unsheathed, claws like flick knives, paws full of muscular intensity.

This Rambo rodent meets each of the gang in turn, pitting his fighting skills against theirs. Ninja Hamster can kick high and low, duck, punch, and block and avoid opponent's blows.

Every successful hit adds to Super Hamster's points and reduces the stamina of his opponents; some blows are more powerful than others. When either the hamster or his opponent runs out of energy, a bite is taken from a large apple at the top of the screen. If his opponent's Granny Smith is all gone, our hamster warrior is the victor and he can go on to meet the next of the ruthless villains. But at higher levels weapons such as maces cross the screen to cause greater problems for our hero...

When the last of the obnoxious bunch has been laid low, Ninja Hamster has saved the day and can end his days comfortably as someone's pet.

COMMENTS

Control keys: I left, O right, Q jump up, W jump forward, K flying kick, I&P block, A duck, P punch, P low kick (while ducking), S high kick, L middle kick, YOY?
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Use of colour: adequate
Graphics: layout like every beat-'em-up, pretty characters which lose definition when fighting
Sound: title tune and spot FX
Skill levels: eight
Screens: eight

Heeha, heeha, wha! Oops, sorry, must have been the Ninja Hamster coming out in me. We've had Ninja Master, The Last Ninja and even just Ninja, but this must be the ultimate name. The graphics are really well drawn and the colour is effective, despite some clash; the screen layout is very similar to the Fist games. And there's a good tune on the title screen. The only problem is that you have to load more code from the tape when you've killed two baddies. This is a highly addictive game, and I'll be buying it.
NICK

Barbarian showed that there may be a few more goodies to scrape out of the fighting aims barrel - and Ninja Hamster is one of them, though its qualities are a little dubious. Joystick control is similar to the Fist games and International Karate so It's fairly easy, but if you prefer keys you'll have to spend a lot of time teaming them (and grow another hand!. The game itself is a plain and straightforward beat-'em-up. No tactics are required, other than getting in as many hits as possible, so it gets quite boring on later levels.
BEN

Ninja Hamster is yet another bash-and-beat-'em game. The graphics may be slightly more detailed and squatter than in other games of this genre, but that's a hindrance - you often can't see a thing that's going on. The armoury of moves is very small, and those that do exist are 'cutely' (yeerggh!!) animated. Ninja Hamster offers very little to do, and a weak atmosphere - I didn't have much fun bashing hell out of other little animals.
PAUL

CRL
£7.95

Aaayyyiii-yyyaaahhh! Eh? That hardly seems appropriate to the review of a game about a cuddly little hamster. Mind you, this is no ordinary hamster, for he is a Radioactive Black Belt Hamster, based on the comic-book of the same name. From the same stable (hutch?) that brought you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, these wacky cult comics have been the toast of the Independent American comics circuit (cheers, you guys) for a couple of years now. I suppose it was inevitable that some bright spark would figure that these humorous rodents would translate very rapidly to the small screen.

You play the part of Ninja Hamster, a hard-fisted, fully qualified fluffy little hamster of doom, against the might of the Lizards of Death. You take on the renegade martial artists one after the other as they terrorise the plains of the Orient First the Doom Rat, then a Lizard of Death, then a Killer Bee, and then the rest of them, Karate Lobsters, Black Belt Parrots and a variety of other deadly housepets out squawking for your blood.

The controls for the game are pretty much the same as for any ninja/martial arts type game with Mid Punch, Squat Kick, High Kick, jump and the inevitable Flying Kick. The game is played in a one screen arena like Exploding Fist, and you can score by how many hits you place on the body of your opponent. The hits are registered by huge apples at the top of the screen, which have chunks bitten out of them the more hits you or your opponent score. When you get down to a core (Cor!) you're out for the count. A bit like the Yin-Yang symbols in Way Of The Tiger, but with a Golden Delicious, if you get my gist.

Now, I would have thought that another ninja game would be one too many. Just shows how wrong you can be. (Okay, how wrong I can be.) There was room for just one extremely funny ninja animals game, and so here it is. Ninja Hamster is a brilliantly funny game, with a profound sense of the ridiculous, and the most original new twist yet on the usually snoreworthy ninja/karate scenario.

KICK HIGH

There's been an explosion in martial-arts sims since The Way Of The Exploding Fist, as RICKY EDDY and ROBIN CANDY observe in this good beat-'em-up guide. And the ninjas just won't lie down - all they want to do is...

They started three years ago, when Bug Byte revealed an interesting little number called Kung Fu. It was an admirable wireframe attempt to produce a martial-arts simulation - 'probably the most unusual game to be seen on the Spectrum for a long while,' said CRASH in amazement.

But sceptics thought the genre would never catch on. It took Melbourne House to show them the way - The Way Of The Exploding Fist, which sold more than 150,000 copies for the Spectrum and nearly half a million across all formats.

Since then, nothing's kept the combat games down. They've been grotesque (Barbarian), skillful (Fist) and downright silly (Ninja Hamster).

The genre soon caught the nickname 'beat-'em-ups', as the gameplay always involves a player beating up his opponent, whether the computer or another player.

And with the advent of the 128s and their improved sound chips, the fighting effects became more hideous - the most disturbing beat-'em-up sounds must be the animal squeals on Ninja Hamster.

But most of these martial-arts simulations are so unrealistic, set in pseudo-Oriental fantasy worlds, that it's just harmless surrogate violence - and everyone likes a bit of that.

NINJA HAMSTER
CRL

62% Issue 43

ROBIN: After many years abroad, Ninja Hamster returns to his homeland to find it overrun by evil creatures. Your mission as the Ramboesque rodent is to defeat them all in turn.

Graphically Ninja Hamster is very detailed, though some of the detail is lost when the fighting begins. And it's easy to get into, despite problems with the keyboard - there are so many keys needed.

I feel Ninja Hamster was sightly underrated in the CRASH review; it makes a good beat-'em-up, though it doesn't leave any lasting impression
70%

RICKY: And you thought hamsters were cute? Dig this baby for one hell of a fighting rodent, saving a village from Sinister Rat, Loony Lobster and a host of other monsters. The humour adds to this traditional beat-'em-up's appeal, but doesn't disguise a very average combat game.
55%

Label: CRL
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tamara Howard

'Fraid so. CRL's latest is no ordinary martial arts thrash. Ninja Hamster has something that no other combat game has ever had. This special ingredient? The Hamster himself.

For a start he's cute. He comes complete with a nifty Ninja eye mask to disguise him, and a lot of very serious-looking, if rather manky fur.

In play, yes it's true, the game suffers from some rather obvious attribute problems, characters merging into one another and generally making a technicolour mess all over the telly screen.

Who cares? This game is terrific. The opponents are all wonderful - all the way from Sinister Rat (who does look like a monkey in boxing gloves, there's no denying that) to the Loony Lobster who, owing to the fact that he's got more arms than the hamster, is pretty difficult to defeat. Barmy Bee even has a real sting in his tail.

Gameplay is much as you would expect to find it - better than I expected actually. By waggling the joystick around and pressing the Fire button from time to time, the usual series of movements can be achieved, such as high kick, low kick, punch and run away.

Each character has his own personality, but if the truth be told, they're all pretty nasty. Mad Dog is kitted out as an American football player (I thought this was Japan!!!) and has the truly unpleasant habit of headbutting the poor hamster. Crazy Cat (that's quite enough alliteration for one game) has a set of lethal looking claws, and Perilous Parrot (no comment) has one sharp looking beak which he's not shy about using.

All these are portrayed larger than life, well, larger than your average Spectrum screen character, upon a background of charming Japanese lettering. If it weren't for the colour mixing and merging, this would be a hugely impressive visual game.

There are a grand total of eight characters to defeat to save the village. A tall order. And quite a lot of work.

Both characters have an energy allowance level at the side of the screen. The level is depleted each time you take a blow, and can be increased by running away and having a bit of a breather. Once the energy runs out, the character will lose consciousness and his opponent will get to take a bite out of his apple.

No, I've not gone stark staring mad. Each player has an apple. Once his opponent has taken eight bites out of it, and reduced it to little more than a core, Ninja Hamster will die. Uttering a very unhappy sampled squeal.

Bored with martial arts games? Don't be. Perhaps you're finding it difficult to see just how exciting Ninja Hamster is. Well, believe me, it's not the dross that you probably expected when you read the title.

Never fear! Somehow Ninja Hamster manages to keep alive the excitement of Martial Arts games. Probably because it's the most bizarre twist that we've seen on that particular theme. Or any other, come to that. Those guys at CRL need their heads testing.

MACHINES: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: CRL
PRICE: £8.95

So you thought you'd seen every possible angle on martial arts? Well, you couldn't have been more wrong. Meet the Ninja Hamster - a fiendishly furry blur of flailing fists and feet.

This game started out life as a joke - an irritated company PR person making up a title just to get a journalist off his back. But then the idea of a Ninja Hamster seemed to stick and so a legend was born!

Well, not quite a legend - more a bit of fighting fun. And by your response to our Ninja Hamster Competition you think it's a laugh too. More on that next issue - but meanwhile back to the review.

The story goes like this. Old Hammy has been in training in a mountainside rodent monastery for absolutely ages - a fortnight at least.

Spinning round in a little wheel, eating sunflower seed sandwiches, that sort of thing.

Now he's heard that his village is under attack by a gang of joy-seeking villains lead by the Lizard of Death, the Sinister Rat and the Loony Lobster to name but a few.

It's Hammy's job to battle this motley crew in hand to hand Ninja combat.

Load the game up and you'll be confronted by the regular karate combat screen layout - except that the fighters are big, cartoony style comic characters. And it's this that makes the game different from the run of the mill combat challenge.

Each character is dressed up in a neat way, The Sinister Rat looks a bit like a Wallaby with boxing gloves, The Lizard is a mean monster with a spiky club, Mad Dog is dressed as an American Football star, and so on.

There are eight villainous vermin to defeat in order to save the village - two on each load. Yup, I'm afraid you'll have to keep going back to the tape player in order to complete the whole game. A bit of a bind this.

There's a two player option as well - which as with all combat games - makes the thing a whole lot more interesting to play. I found that after the novelty of the funny graphics, little comic style speech balloons had worn off the whole thing got a bit too easy.

I defeated The Rat using the tried and trusted low sweeping kick time after time - the computer controlled opponents seem to be too easy to overcome.

You have to defeat each of the opposing animals about four times before you get to move on to the next one. The number of falls your enemy or you have taken is indicated by apples at the top of the screen which have bites taken out of them with every fall.

Graphics aren't bad, sound is minimal and gameplay gets a bit repetitive.

Ninla Hamster doesn't add much to the martial arts theme - except to generate a bit of humour. But sadly the joke isn't enough to last long enough for me to want to shell out for a full price game - at budget price things might be different.