iNinja

You know those console fighting games like Tekken and Soul Caliber where you’re just madly pressing buttons without knowing what will really happen but it seems to work so you keep on doing it? iNinja’s gameplay is just a tiny bit like that except instead of pressing buttons you’re frantically swiping your fingers this way and that and, somehow, you manage to knock out the ninjas who are flying all over the screen.

iNinja arms you with throwing stars and nunchuks for beating down wave after wave of flying ninjas and, depending on the game mode, UFOs. The controls are simple enough… swipe upward with one finger to throw a star, hold down a bit to gain power and then swipe to really fling that star as hard as you can, and use two fingers to swing the chuks like an out-of-control moron.

There are four game modes: normal, survival, time attack, and super time attack. I know there’s something different about each one but, to be perfectly honest, all I do in this game is fling stars and swing the chuks blindly and it doesn’t really matter what mode I’m playing! One thing that does matter, however, is what kind of obstacles there are between you and the ninjas you’re trying to take down. There may be big green boulders that can drift around and kill stuff for you if you hit them the right way, there may be smaller red balls that stay somewhat in place like bumpers on a pinball machine, and there may be a combination of the two.

Depending on what you’re dealing with, there are different strategies that can work for you or against you… sometimes flinging star after star after star will do the trick, other times you’ll need the nunchaku, and if you really want to get fancy you can tap several times to get a little mass of stars going and then fling another star at the group to send them everywhere. Again, the gameplay in iNinja is pretty frantic so I guess the best thing to do is just go with whatever works.

One feature I haven’t had the chance to test out is the Fight mode which allows you to play head-to-head with another iPhone ninja. If you and another player both have your iPhones on the same wifi network, you can duke it out in a two-player battle but naturally I have no friends so I’m afraid you’ll just have to try it out for yourself to see how it works.

Like all games I wish Geppetto Inc. would let iNinja play iPod music during the game but it doesn’t, and it has a local scoreboard but not a global one which would be a nice addition in a future update. The overall production quality of iNinja is pretty good so if you’re a fan of gameplay that’s more action than skill this might be worth the $2 download.

iTunes Link – iNinja
Version 2.0
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.0