The general consensus is that the holidays are a time of giving, where families reunite once a year for their obligation to tolerate each other and exchange gifts that they half-heartedly bought for one another while listening to the same Christmas carols from the 1940’s and every permutation thereafter. What you may not know, however, is that every year something comes along to give Christmas its dark side, like Black Christmas, last year’s atrociously funny Christmas horror flick where people were murdered with sharpened candy canes and got icecicles drilled through their eyes. This year, however, the devil came in a more deceitful form. With the Wii being this year’s hot thing to have, the temptation comes in a small package at the seemingly reasonable price of twenty bucks bearing the name Ninjabread Man. While many a tech-stupid parent will look at this low rent action hero as a deal, little do they know that they’d be better off buying themselves cancer than subjecting themselves and their children to this crap. It’s hard enough to believe that anyone can create a character lamer than the Arby’s oven mitt in terms of general creative retardation, but the brains at Conspiracy and Digital Data Design have managed to achieve the unthinkable. Guara-damn-teed, if this game ends up under enough peoples’ trees, we’re going to see a proportional spike in holiday suicides.
Ninjabread Man takes its inspiration from the holiday tradition of the lost art of the gingerbread house, that being sugar coated garbage that’s full of empty calories. There’s really no rhyme or reason behind the premise of the game other than Candy Land is under attack by bees and crappy looking cupcakes, and it’s up to Ninjabread Man to save whatever the hell lives there. Insert a couple of lame “tough cookie” puns and you’ve got yourself a story premise worthy of a mediocre porn flick. You start the game training in the aptly and hilariously titled “Dough Jo” where you learn within the first two minutes that this game is nothing more than complete cut rate bargain bin trash. Five minutes and one thrown together tutorial later, congratulations, you’ve already completed 25% of the game and are ready to strike out on your own.
All right, so no matter how weak the premise is, ninjas will always be cool right? Well, let’s call this the ultra rare exception. Sure, the little bastard has a sword, but just try using it and see if you don’t become fodder for the next lame cupcake, bumblebee, or gelatinous tumor that comes your way. It’s here where the game takes a turn from lame PS2 game to abominable Wii garbage. You see, the Wii controls are tacked on in such a way that you’ll wonder how many purple-assed baboons work the QA department at Conspiracy Entertainment. In practice, you’re supposed to swing the Wii remote left and right to use your sword, which you’ll do once and only once, because no matter how much you swing the damn remote left and right, your Ninjabread Man will refuse to attack again.
Ninjabread Man preps for a swing before an imminent miss.
Now that the sword is out of the equation, that’s not to say that Ninjabread Man is defenseless. He also has a ranged attack where he shoots fireballs at enemies that are far away and too damn stupid to dodge them, making the fireball attack the most exploitable part of the game and bringing the game’s already child-like difficulty down to unbearable levels. Of course, that’s not a problem since the game only consists of four levels and takes just about an hour to beat. Even better, the goal for each level remains the same as you’re forced to endure the worst platforming ever conceived in the form of an eternal fetch quest in search of a number unexplainable blue canisters that open a teleporter to the next level. The best part is when you finally reach the teleporter on the last level, instead of getting any kind of closure or satisfaction of saving the ugly room-filled world of Candy Land, you merely get kicked back to the title screen to lament wasting your money while thinking that twenty bucks worth of Taco Bell would have been far more enjoyable and ten times more fulfilling.
This screenshot pretty much sums up how boring this game is.
In addition to the insanely boring combat, (if you even want to call it that) you’ll find yourself engaged in a perpetual grueling battle with the camera, which is the closest thing to a boss battle the game has to offer. While the world around you is adorned in sprinkles and chocolate chips, the platforming action that makes up the majority of Ninjabread Man’s quest is strictly vanilla. My wittiness precedes me. Still, the platforming sequences you’ll come across while playing through the hour of stretched out entertainment are either uninspired or totally frustrating, thanks in part to poor collision detection that will have you just making a jump, only to get stuck in the side of the platform and sink through it. Above all, you’ll quickly realize that your biggest enemy isn’t food related, nor is it the hopelessly annoying buzzing bees that stalk Candy Land. Your worst enemy turns out to be the many, many bugs (again, not of the bee variety) that’ll have you falling through solid objects, floors, and even getting you teleported back to the beginning of a level. Worse than that, the bland platforming is spiced up with a number of fun and handy camera issues that are sure to keep you coming back time and time again…you know, just to get past them. The fact that Ninjabread Man runs at an impressive 85 miles-per-hour minimum only adds to the thrills that are in store.
Even though Ninjabread Man was originally made for the PS2 in 2005 and ported to the Wii in 2007, it manages somehow look like a Nintendo 64 game with a shower door coated with years of soap scum over it. In all, you have a nice variety of textures that look like wafers, chocolate chips, and sprinkles that give you a total of about three things to look at throughout the shoddy world in which the game takes place. The low-rent Wal-Mart bargain bin feel doesn’t stop at the visuals however; as the game’s atrocious game design will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. Candy Land’s worlds turn out to be nothing more than room after room with platforms everywhere and linear pathways gingerly prodding you along. Either way, you’ve pretty much seen all the game has to offer within the first few minutes of playing it. After that, either you’ll be bored or still trying to figure out what the hell that thing is that’s shooting strawberries at you.
Ninjabread Man will never crumble under pressure! Har. Har.
Sound is pretty much nonexistent. It’s bad enough that the title screen lacks any kind of music at all, each level has its own one-minute track that loops repeatedly. Worse than that, the in-game sounds, what little there are, are extremely quiet and leave you with the constant soundtrack drilling a hole into your head time and time again. Thankfully, the developers half-assed the game enough not to give Ninjabread Man any witty quips or give any monsters, aside from the annoying bees, any sound effects. I, for one, consider that mercy on behalf of them.
So there you have it. Four levels, one hour of gameplay, three enemies, and one lame mascot character later you’ve got a game that can’t even live up to its own bargain bin price. Unlike Stellar Stone, Data Design is still around and actually specializes in creating garbage games. Lately they’ve been porting all of their cut-rate PS2 slurry from 2005 to the Wii. Consider them the Laura Roberts grocery store crotch novel writers of the gaming industry. In fact, their latest game, Anubis II, is up for the worst game of the year 2007 on Gamespot. One look at a screenshot comparison will tell you the evils it holds:
Uncanny resemblance? I think so. However, that’s another story for another time. To sum it all up, Ninjabread man is utter garbage and should join such other holiday crap like tinsel, aluminum trees, fart noisemakers, inflatable sheep, and fruitcake in the Christmas hall of shame.
Check out the last level (including the heartwarming ending) of Ninjabread Man!
While you're here, enjoy these other related articles:
