Surf Ninjas CD32



Title           Surf Ninjas CD32
Game Type	General Action
Players		1
Compatibility	CD32
Company		MicroValue/Flair
Submission	Courtesy of Sean Caszatt

Review
Games based on movies are notorious for usually being a way to disguise a
poor game by using a highly desireable character or situation from a
movie.  Ever since E.T. appeared on the screen of Atari 2600 game systems,
the track record of movie licensed games has been poor.  (Notable
exceptions being Ocean's ROBOCOP 3D and LucasArts' INDIANA JONES AND THE
FATE OF ATLANTIS, which isn't based on a movie per se, but a movie
character.)

SURF NINJAS, a movie I didn't see, did not strike me as a game waiting to
be made.  Since I didn't see the movie, I can't tell you how faithful the
game is to the spirit of the movie.  However, I can tell you that if it IS
faithful to the movie, I advise you to avoid the movie without hesitation.

SURF NINJAS, the game that is, requires you to fight off ninja warriors
while trying to collect various objects to complete each stage.  The
screen scrolls from right to left as you try to do this.  I say "try"
because this would be a fairly simple task if the game hadn't been
programmed in what seems to be BASIC.  As soon as more than two characters
appear on the screen at the same time, the game goes into what appears to
be slow-motion.  (A jump and kick move will take approximately 2-3 SECONDS
to execute completely from start to finish, when three or more characters
are on the screen.  This is opposed to less than a second with one or two
characters are on the screen.)

Collision detection between characters is dreadfully slow and inaccurate.
You can only kick someone while jumping up, not on your way down.
Sometimes your character will act as if he has one of the ninjas in a
headlock...but he doesn't.  It hard enough to control a game in slow
motion, but when you can't even be sure that you're hitting someone when
you clearly should be is enough to make you feel like screaming.

Enough about the control of the game.  The graphics and music are also in
the same quality vein: Crap.  The music would sound appropriate on a
Commodore 64 game.  The graphics reminded me of the 8-bit Nintendo game
N.A.R.C.

I found it interesting that there was no warranty card in the box nor any
address on the packaging.  Whoever is responsible for this mess doesn't
seem to want to answer for it.  Flair's name appears when the game boots
up, but their name appears nowhere on the packaging.  MicroValue is the
company named on the packaging.  Neither lists an address on the box.




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