Ninja Assault

Ninja Assault

Namco's latest light gunner doesn't quite hit the mark.

By and large, the light gun-shooting genre is a mindless, diversionary sub-category. Regardless of how many bells and whistles a developer can throw the gamers way, it's pretty much all the same thing: Constant blasting.

Yeah, you have novelties like the duck and cover feature found in the Time Crisis series, and the multiple branching paths of House of the Dead, but when all is and done, we¿re left with your typical 30-minute jaunt on limited rails; with the only true differences coming by way of setting, location, and visual presentation.

The premise this time around with Namco's Ninja Assault is centered on an elite clan of Ninja commissioned to rescue a princess from a dark and evil entity. Using a special kind of old-school hand pistol we've seen in pirate movies for years, the martial arts triad blast their way through seven stages of two-toed mayhem before confronting the final evil. Please don't be angry with me though, as I have just inadvertently revealed the entire storyline from beginning to end. Whoops.

As a general rule of thumb, 50% of light gun blasters actually turn out to be mildly entertaining. For every Duck Hunt, House of the Dead, and Die Hard Trilogy however, you have Endgame andDino Stalker bringing the genre further towards extinction. And while Ninja Assault isn't nearly as terrible as those aforementioned games are, there isn't enough of the good stuff to keep you interested for long.

Explaining how the controls work is pretty straightforward -- point the gun in the direction of your choice and fire at whatever comes your way. Identical to every genre piece you've played before it, Ninja Assault asks you to do nothing but frantically attack onscreen movement while waiting for your laundry cycle to finish. Though you can speed up or slow down the pace of your "camera rails", and use a special attack every now and then via magical scrolls, reloading is the only distraction you'll have in-between melees. With fast practice, that slight nuance turns into an afterthought, and the game's simplicity continues.

To its credit, the game keeps you pretty busy and tosses plenty of foes your way in multiple directions. As an additional bonus, enemies are not all limited to a single hit point, which makes focusing on an attacker and blasting him a couple of times a good idea. Another aspect I enjoyed was how balanced special attacks are; clearing a screen in a single blow, the ultra powerful goodies are extremely hard to come by and don't offer themselves up to sharpshooters very often. You'll find maybe two per stage, tops.

If you don't have two GunCons (or even one), using the Dual Shock 2 is a snap, perhaps too much of one. As instead of allowing the game to adjust the sensitivity of their controller for increased/decreased aiming speed, the auto-targeting feature immediately moves the cursor to the nearest enemy. And since this is a feature that can't be switched on or off, expert controller players are not likely to find a challenge because of how easy it is to blast someone. Especially since they appear within your sights from the outset.

At least it doesn't happen 100% of the time, as faster more agile enemies dodge and maneuver around your crosshair without letting you receive any help from the A.I. The frequency that you run into such opponents isn't exactly high though, so this isn't a challenge that will present itself often. The bosses too are incredible pushovers, with the final honcho easily dispatched without using a continue after your second or even first time through. Combine that with only seven five-minute stages and your replay value takes a serious hit.

Graphics and Sound
Originally an arcade game from two years back, Ninja Assault is a dated shooter, and it shows. While it certainly isn't short on a spectrum of color, the models and animations of both the main characters and the enemies are stiff and antiquated and are very reminiscent of a PlayStation One title. Special effects hounds won't find much to write home about either, as the few fire and magic-based visual treats are as basic as they come.

The audio falls into the same age bracket as the visuals with cheesy player voices and repetitive two-tone sound bits to fill the air between attacks. Musically, the game reminded us very much of an Asian-style remix to the Time Crisis soundtrack, and the constant blast from your weapon is pretty stock; A remedial presentation on the whole.


A better choice than most for title-hungry light gun fans, Ninja Assault isn't a particularly bad game, it just doesn't stand out as anything particularly compelling. A slightly above-average offering two years ago when it first made its coin-op debut, the slightly larger home version makes a few improvements over the aging original, but doesn't capture our imagination or attention like Namco's other big shooters (Time Crisis and Point Blank) have done in the past.

An acceptable one-time rental for the terminally bored, you can find a lot better choices out there for your gaming dollar.

In This Article

Ninja Assault

Ninja Assault

The PS2 version of the arcade lightgun rail shooter. Use the GunCon or GunCon 2 to shoot down enemy soldiers and monsters across feudal Japan.
Realistic Violence
Platforms:PlayStation 2
Publishers:ACE (2), Namco
Features:Number Of Players, Memory Card, Vibration, DualShock
Release Date:November 18, 2002
Ninja Assault
Ninja Assault

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