REAL GAMES - 3 NINJAS KICK BACK

Wow. What a crappy little game to start my journey with.

3 Ninjas Kick Back is your typical movie licensed game with very little redeeming qualities. For those of you that do not know, 3 Ninjas was an early 90's movie franchise that tried to cash in on two big genres at the time: Ninjas and wacky kids (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mixed with Home Alone). However, we did not get a game based on the first movie. This game is based on the lackluster sequel which offered nothing new, kind of like this game did for platformers in general. The only question I have is why did they pick this movie over 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain? A ninja game that takes place in an amusement park, where we could team up with Hulk Hogan? Sign me up!

Whatchu gonna do when
Hulkamania runs wild on you,
Brotha?

You start the game off with a choice of characters: Rocky, Colt, and Tum-Tum. Regardless of who you pick, we are presented with a voice clip from the movie stating, "Let's Murderlize 'Em!" Thankfully, this is the only time the game tries to impress us with its amazing sound processing abilities. As for the characters themselves, it really does not matter. One uses a staff, another a sword, and the Down's Syndrome midget uses sais. All of these are equally as worthless, so I chose according to who I can relate with the most. The midget with Down's Syndrome.

My favorite color is
POTATO

The first thing I try to do with any game is to figure out the controls. Upon inspection it would appear that I have two buttons for the exact same attack, an oddly placed jump, and a button that is later used for bombs. Why two buttons for the same thing? Well early on in the game, you can get throwing stars. So obviously one attack is with the stars and the other is with the default weapon right? Nope. Both attacks throw the stars, which wastes the limited supply fairly quickly and makes them completely useless. Just like this game.

Next up, we have the wonderful soundtrack. It consists of the same generic tune looped FOREVER. Not a whole lot to say here, as even the sound effects are pretty generic, but at least it doesn't try to use the voice rendering from the character selection.

If this game has any strengths, it would have to be the graphics. Aside from the title and character selection screen, the graphics are pretty damn good. Good use of colors, and a decent amount of detail on the sprites, even though 90% of the crap in this game can not be found in any of the movies.

Last, we have the gameplay. This game is not very long, consisting of 5 levels with a few zones each, a small handful of boss battles, and pretty simple stages. There are some hair pulling moments, but they usually revolve around the boss fights, which should be difficult anyway. The "biggest" pain in the ass would have to be Nurse Shubuya. That is one big bitch.

MAN THE HARPOONS!!

Overall, 3 Ninjas Kick Back is typical for a movie licensed game, and sub-par for a platformer. Therefore, I give this game 2 out of 5 mentally challenged ninjas.