Ninja Reflex

• System: Nintendo Wii
• Game Type: Action/Mini-game
• Difficulty: Medium-Hard

• Great use of the Wiimote
• Fun mini-game ideas
• Who doesn't want to be a ninja?

• Not enough different challenges
• No adventure mode
• Some later challenges get really hard!

Ever wondered what it takes to be a ninja? Well now's your chance to find out. Under the training of a wise, white-bearded Sensei (teacher), you'll learn the ways of the warrior and practice a variety of skills and techniques. It's not all about brute force, the Sensei explains - you'll need a sharp mind and lightning-quick reflexes to get through the challenges he's got in store for you. With the Wiimote you'll catch flying insects, throw weapons at targets, swing swords and nunchuks, and grab slippery koi fish in a pond with your hands. In between lessons, the Sensei will give you advice and share his secrets - he'll even teach you how to meditate!

You'll start out as a novice white belt, and you'll need to prove yourself to your sensei to move up through the ranks! Beating the mini-game challenges earns you jewels, and once you have five jewels you can take a test to earn your colored belts from red all the way up to the master's black.

The game is divided into six different training areas, each area guiding you toward excellence in a different ninja technique. Within a training area there are a series of mini-games, some of which you can only unlock as you increase your skill. If you fail a challenge you can try it again as many times as you like, or skip it and come back to it later. That's a good thing, because some of them can get pretty frustrating! If you find yourself wanting to fling your controller across the room it's time to head over to the Meditation area for a little bit of cooling down.

To help you focus before the challenges or wind down after some hard training work, the Sensei will lead you in a relaxing meditation session, which is actually pretty cool. If you choose Guided Meditation you'll get a stream of soothing instructions from the Sensei telling you to relax your body, close your eyes and clear your mind of stress. In Silent Meditation you'll set a number of minutes to let the Sensei know how long you want to meditate and the Wii will put up a pretty screensaver until he announces that the time's up. Listening to his calming voice in the guided session is actually surprisingly effective, so when you've had a bad day, you can always flip on your Wii and get your Sensei to remind you to relax those shoulders!

Overall, Ninja Reflex is a great game to pick up if you want a bit of fun distraction, but don't expect a long continuous gaming experience. While the belt challenges are a lot of fun, there isn't much variety - you'll basically go round and round through the six areas as they get progressively harder. The mini-games are pretty addictive, but even when the Sensei praised our efforts, we couldn't help wishing there was a little more reward. The harder levels you unlock are more variations of the same challenges, or simply harder or faster versions of the very same mini-games. Playing with a friend in the multiplayer mode adds a little more spice to the challenge, but it will still leave you wanting more.

As a game tutorial, Ninja Reflex would be amazing. If only we could launch into an adventure mode where we could put all these ninja skills to good use! When you finish with this game, you'll have learned a lot, but you won't really have anywhere to use it. Fishing with your hands in the neighbor's little backyard pond? Yeah, that's probably not a good idea.