Activision/Software Studios
£9.99

Tsukikage (bless you) is a typical Ninja warrior, armed with razor sharp Katana sword, Shuriken throwing stars, dynamite and swirly blades on a chain. With these he sets out to destroy an evil Warlock and his henchmen. Tsk (as he is known to all those who run out of breath trying to pronounce his name) is no ordinary Ninja: he's the spirit of a white wolf who's taken on human shape.

Tsk starts his monumental six-level trek in a ruined temple and faces hordes of Ninjas, wolves, old gits with swirly blades on a chain. With these he sets out to destroy an evil Warlock and his henchmen. Tsk (as he is known to all those who run out of breath trying to pronounce his name) is no ordinary Ninja: he's the spirit of a white wolf who's taken on human shape.

Tsk starts his monumental six-level trek in a ruined tempts and faces hordes of Ninjas, wolves, old gits with sticks and a myriad end of level bad guys in haunted forests, swamps and vertically scrolling cliff laces. Choose between the four weapons and let rip. Some of the destroyed enemies leave behind crystals which power up your weapons: an energy shield for your sword, multiple Shuriken and dynamite, a larger swirly blade and even a couple of Ninja Spirits to keep you company can be collected.

Aaagh, pass me the sun shades! This romp suffers from some of the worst screen clutteritis ever seen. Both character and background sprites are mono, which doesn't help character identification. Add to that the amount of things on screen at once and you very often die without noticing!

Ninja Spirits is an obscure coin-op game that should have been left in the dingy corner of the arcade it was taken from.

MARK [55%]

One of those games which might be quite good if you could only see what the hell was going on - one of the worst examples of screen clutter I've ever seen! Large(ish) sprites jump about on a highly detailed yukky yellow monochrome oriental background. Evil killers appear all over the place and before you know it you're dead! Tedious. Only for fans of strained eyes and headaches: there's a good game in here somewhere, finding it is the problem.
NICK [61%]

Activision
£9.99 cass
Reviewer: Matt Bielby

Now, I'm not familiar with the coin-op at all here, so I could be a bit wrong about this, but here's what the game's all about (as I see it). You play a ninja-type character (to be more precise, the spirit of a white wolf reincarnated as a ninja character), on a mission to kill some evil warlord/rescue a princess/avenge your brother's death/something like that. But oh no! There are hundreds of other ninjas all over the place, each with but one thought in his mind - to stop you managing whatever it is you're out to do. Nothing all that unusual so far, but just such a simple premise has formed the basis for many an excellent coin-op conversion before. Let's have a closer look.

It seems like you're in for some pretty rough going, doesn't it (about seven levels of horizontally-scrolling rough going actually), and indeed you are! But don't despair - help is at hand! Help in the form of some spooky collectable items! Hurrah!

You see, a goodly number of the baddie ninjas drop a floating orb thing behind them as you bump them off. Collect them by simply running over them and you're provided with a 'ninja spirit' thence the name of the game). This is a ghostly mirror-image replica of yourself, who runs along a few steps behind you, hacking when you do, jumping when you do and generally being not that much use at all really (because you yourself have already killed off 99.9% of known baddies, by simple virtue of the fact that you're the one in front).

All seems well and good so far for an enjoyable arcade romp, wouldn't you agree? And indeed, things continue to look quite rosy as we take a closer look at the main character. Fairly large and well drawn, he comes equipped with a wide variety of fighting moves. To deal with head-on attacks there's a sort of forward slash move with the katana (which is what you call those curvy Japanese swords, or so I'm told). Then there's the sort of 'up in the air prod' move (for getting people that jump on you) and the 'kneeling and poking your knife into the ground' move (presumably for those occasions when people or thingies attack from beneath the floorboards, not that I've got to that bit yet).

Not too shabby a selection so far, but better than that (much better!) is our hero's jumping ability - it's mammoth! Here's a hero who could probably leap three quarters the length of the screen in a single mighty bound! Who can spring over the heads of the enemy like they're not even there! Who makes even Strider look a bit of slouch in the bouncing department!

And the bad guys are no stick-in-the-muds either! Whether swordsmen, giant ninjas, 'mystical kite-men' or, um, the other ones, pretty soon you have everyone on-screen bouncing around like mad things, slashing their swords through the air and screaming "Haaiii-agh!' at full volume (except theey don't, but we do get an insistent oriental-type tune to make up for it in 128K). The whole effect is like one of those loopy Japanese TV shows you occasionally see at the end of the night down the Chinese takeaway, with oodles of people screaming, chopping away with swords and leaping about all over the place like a bunch of giant, human-shaped grasshoppers! Marvellous, ludicrous fun.

And that's exactly what Ninja Spirit is like, with one gigantic, massive, pointless glitch fouling up the whole business. Yup, have I got a 'but' to land on you now! (You knew there'd be a 'but', didn't you? I've been leading up to it all along.)

And the 'but' is... there is no possible way on this earth you can tell what's going on! The screen might as well be in another room for all the good it does you! it's ridiculous! Activision goes to all this expense (presumably quite a costly licence, getting programmers to come up with some pretty smart scrolling and then perfect what looks like it might be quite smooth and jolly gameplay) only to shoot itself quite severely in the foot by making a total hash of the graphics.

They're in monochrome, right? The little characters are fairly well drawn, well animated and of decent size (or at least, they look like they might be) but those backgrounds - aargh! Some graphic artist has just got totally carried away with himself, done some (admittedly rather nice) pictures of buddahs, rocks and Lord knows what else for the backgrounds, and somebody else, rather than bin them all and leave a plain black background or something, has gone and left hem in! It's a ridiculous joke - they've totally forgotten that people are meant to play the damn thing. Bullets, arrows, whole character sprites, simply disappear from view, then reappear again (after a fashion) seconds later! Ludicrous. (Ahem. Sorry. Getting a bit carried away.)

Right, where were we? Ninja Spirit - it could be a perfectly good game, but it's not, because in one fell swoop the graphics undo all the other good work put into it and render at near as dammit unplayable. Those with very sharp eyes and very clear monitors to play the thing on may have hours of fun, but for the rest of us it's a bit of a non-starter. How very unnecessary.

There are only two things wrong with Ninja Spirit; the graphics and the payability. Har har.

Well, although this seems a little harsh, it's not really a million miles from the truth. Ninja Spirit is an excellent martial arts program, but there are a couple points which, if tweaked a little, could be greatly improved.

For a start, the backdrops on most levels are so complicated (and indeed pretty) that it's quite impossible to spot incoming objects. Since you don't have an energy level, one hit from any object will kill you outright. This is even more of a pain when your next life starts a couple of screens back from your last position.

Levels with complex backgrounds therefore take much longer to complete than those (few) where you can see where you're going. Not fair.

Level 1 is set in a temple of sorts. All alone, you've got to hack (sword), swing (grappling hook derivative), chuck (shiruken) and, er, chuck (little hammers) your way through the temple from the left most point to the right. Even at this early stage, the bad guys come thick and fast. As well as the frenzied gangs which run on from the sides of the screens, there are little blighters hanging from the rafters firing hammers at you.

It becomes rapidly apparent that the only weapon worth having is (are) the shiruken. Since any contact with the enemy results in death, you'd have to be braver (madder) than most to try your luck with the sword. The grappling-hook scythe is largely ineffectual except for use on solitary foes. And the little hammers are simply useless.

Even when you've got to grips with the slightly inefficient fire method - hold down fire and push in the appropriate direction; ie you can't fire while running - the sheer number of enemy soldiers is overwhelming.

Fortunate, then, that specific soldiers when killed leave behind floating bubbles with miraculous powers. Some multiply the power of your current weapon; for example giving you a whooshy sword or three-directional shiruken fire. Others, though bring to life - ta daa! - the Ninja Spirit.

The Spirit is a damned handy fellow. He has an armoury equal to yours, is impervious to attack and follows your every move at an appropriate distance.

Alas, you lose all your power-ups and Mr Spirit each time you get killed.

Level 2 takes place in dense forest. It's a bit of a nothingy level, to tell the truth. More men up trees firing diagonally at you, and platforms to jump on. The end of this level pits you against what looks like a big ape flying around on a crossbow. A few shots, though, and he's done for.

Level 3 is where life begins to get really tough. Out on the wastelands of blasted trees and debris, you're assaulted by the usual baddies and a new breed of scumbag. These ones have horrible pointy hats and whopping blunderbuss guns. And they shoot you in the back, the yellow bellied swine.

Level 4 and it's back indoors for a punch up in what looks like a tavern. This time, your ninja abilities have warmed up enough to let you walk on the ceiling. From here you can work a zig-zag formation, spraying shiruken and covering most horizontal angles.

Possibly the worst offender on the visual front is Level 5, where you have to progress vertically up a mountain face. Perched on ledges are the little hammer men. It's virtually impossible to pick them out from the background, let alone their little hammers.

Despite the visual problems, and the slightly wonky fire mechanism, Ninja Spirit it a corking hybrid of martial arts and runny-jumpy action. A great deal of fun in a Water Margin sort of way.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Atari £24.99
Amiga £24.99

FOLLOW THE WHITE WOLF

Fearsome characters these ninjas. Ninja Spirit is set in a six-level, mythological land where a very unfriendly warlock is terrorising the local rice-chomping natives. Not to worry of course, because there's always the odd ninja on his travels through the neighbourhood (and here comes Lee Van Cleef now).

The great ninja Tsukikage, who is really the spirit of a white wolf in disguise, has jumped into the fray, and deigned it his duty to rescue the suffering villagers (what a lad!).

Tsk (as he's known to his friends) comes equipped with four types of weapon. As with all ninjas he carries some throwing stars (shurikens), but also some dynamite, a samurai sword and a length of bicycle chain with blades attached (owch!).

On his trek through the six levels of the town, Tsk meets many 'objectionable' people. Most are poxy ninja henchmen, one slash of the sword and they're soon cold sushi. However, more challenging creatures pop up too, mostly at the ends of levels - giant swordsmen, Buddahs, Kitemen: you get the picture?

Some enemy encounters will not only prove fun but also fruitful. Depending on what type of dude Tsk slices up they'll leave behind differing types of crystal. While most increase the power of his weaponry (more shurikens, for example), the odd crystal will add extra energy or even muster up some ninja spirits to shadow Tsk's every move.

Tsk's first level of combat is the village temple. On passing that you'll travel through haunted forests, spirit-infested marshes, caves, and over towering cliffs. And all for those pesky villagers. Haven't you got anything better to do?

Ninja Spirit is based on the coin-op of the same name. It is around, even we've seen it (!), but you'll have to look damn hard to find it.