Hide from the Ninjabread Man!
There is a new weapon in the war on terror. All you have to do, is round up a bunch of suspicious types and put them in a small room with Ninjabread Man. You’ll find out all you need to know. This game is that bad. I have been playing games for quite some time, and have never run into a game that is so bad that it literally makes you want to run away from your console. But Ninjabread Man has introduced me to the darker side of videogames. The side that includes completely immovable cameras, unresponsive controls, and a lack of any type of story or cohesive element whatsoever. This game may not be the worst game ever made, but it certainly is the worst game I have ever played.
Now as I mentioned before, there is absolutely no story to this game. It starts you off in “training mode” where you run around and every once and a while you’ll get a pop-up sign telling you how to do something. Then once you finish that, it’s straight onto level one, where you have to collect these blue orb/vial things, which unlock some type of red portal. Then you jump on the portal, and go on to level two. Where you have to collect more blue orb/vial things to open another portal. Sound sort of repetitive? Oh yeah. And there is no reason ever given as to why your Ninjabread man has to get these vials, or where these portals eventually lead to. The game just lets you go. And that’s where the horror of this game comes into palpable action.
You see, this game’ worst feature has to be it’s controls. First of all, they make no sense, even to your console. In theory, you are supposed to flick your Wii-mote from side to side to use your sword. And this actually works maybe 10 percent of the time. Honestly, I wish I had video of how severely I would swing my Wii-mote from side to side, while my character made no movements on screen. It was truly the most frustrating gaming experience ever. However, there was an even more frustrating element: jumping. Essentially to Jump, you have to flick your Nunchuck up twice. Which doesn’t sound too bad, but id you want to actually go somewhere, you have to use the Nunchuck’s thumbstick. And pointing your character in any kind of logical direction while flicking your Nunchuck upwards is quite a feat, and it requires some extreme coordination that I just do not possess.
So now let’s say, by some random miracle, that you get the controls down and they do what they’re supposed to. Then you’ve got the camera to worry about. Not since Dragon Ball Z Sagas have I seen a camera this stoic. It just doesn’t move. And half the time, there will be an obstacle in front of you, and you can’t see it because, somehow, the camera wants you to look at yourself or a nearby cookie. There is a center camera button, but as soon as you move, the camera reverts to crazy mode. It really doesn’t cooperate, and since you have minimal control over it, the camera contributes to the great amount of frustration and anger anyone would feel after playing this game.
Sound in this game is definitely not as agitating or frustrating as everything else, but boy is it annoying. What the game calls music is a never ending loop of a couple of notes that change each level. And while some might argue that classic games, which have well-remembered simplistic looping tunes, featured some of the best music ever made, Ninjabread man doesn’t have that memorable simplistic sound. It’s been replaced with the repeated sound of synthesizer notes that sound like they were strung together by an 8th grade music student. Sound effects aren’t as bad, simply because there aren’t that many. You can hear bees buzzing, and there’s a sound for when you slash your sword, and when you defeat an enemy. These sounds are okay, and the game is probably best played if you go to the pause screen, turn down the music and just leave the sound effects.
The one area where the game doesn’t actually do too shabby is in graphical terms. Sure it looks a lot like a PlayStation 2 game, but I’m willing to give it some amount of credit for not looking like it plays. Because if it did, it would probably look like Pong. If you couldn’t see the ball and the paddles were shaped like circles. But thankfully, when you can see the game, there is at least something to see.
I know I sound really harsh towards this game, and as I was writing this, I almost felt guilty for writing such a negative review. So I employed my two little brothers (aged thirteen and fourteen) to try out this game as well. The younger one told me he was changed for life, and would probably have a fear of gingerbread for the rest of his life. So in short, I have witnesses who concur that this game is probably one of the worst games you could ever have the misfortune of playing. If you decide to take a chance and play this one, I applaud you for being very brave because I really don’t think it gets much worse than this.
Features:
racing action is captured in cinematic style and players are rewarded for showing off their skills a
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