Mini Ninjas: a tale of stealthily cute proportions

I'm a little late to the game (so to speak), but I've recently just finished playing IO Interactive's latest IP, MINI NINJAS. It took me a long time to realize that a demo isn't just a bit taken directly from the game and given to you to play, they are tailor-made to show off some of the best qualities of the game to get you hooked enough to purchase it.

I remember playing the demo for Mini Ninjas two or three times when it first became available and enjoying it immensely, but I'm so glad I finally got the complete game because it was more fun and creative than the demo can display. Although it may initially appear to be targeted towards kids and girls due to its cutesy character renditions and simplified  environments, I think it's got enough to satisfy gamers of any gender who appreciate video games as art. And believe me, video games are art- but that's a whole other argument and post.

Velvet Assassin

I had a lot of hope for Velvet Assassin since it seemed to have a pretty bad-ass female as the protagonist who could take care of herself with no problems. But then I got to play it, and none of that really seemed to matter.

The story is interesting, as it should be since it's loosely based on a true story, and the graphics are decent. It's the combat engine that is really lacking and is obviously something that the developers didn't put a lot of thought into.

I owned this game for about a day and a half and I was very sad to have to take it back. It's the second game I've returned without completing. The combat engine is not user-friendly and is almost impossible to even do correctly. Within the first level, you have to sneak up behind a German soldier and press the 'A' button to kill him. Simple enough, right?. But there's a catch- you can't just stand behind him and then kill him, you have to be a specific distance away from him before the dialogue pops up telling you to push the kill button ( 'A', since I play on Xbox) to take him out.

That's right; you can't just push A whenever you feel you're close enough to kill him, you are only allowed to do so when the game tells you to. This makes it difficult to actually do a kill because you only have a second to push the button right as it pops up before the guy turns around and starts shooting at you, killing you almost instantly since you have no armor to speak of and a measly pistol against his automatic.

This impossibleness is aided by the fact that the game fails to actually give you tips that could help you with this problem. I had to figure out for myself that when I start to get close enough to the enemy the sides of the screen will turn red, and that's how I know that soon the kill dialogue will pop up and allow me to kill the guy. But it took me about five or more deaths to actually notice that.

This game had a lot of potential and it was pretty much ruined by the horrible combat mechanic. Maybe when I'm 50 there will be a remake of it and they'll have actually made it into a better game, the game that I wanted so badly.

This short review is provided by the lack of content to write about. Even though there's a story and an intriguing character, you can hardly get far enough into the game to muster up the energy to actually care about either of those things. The real Violette Summers, Violette Szabo, would be rolling in her grave if she knew what they had done with her life story and how they failed at properly portraying her life as an Allied secret agent who accidentally parachuted into German-occupied France.

Sorry Replay Studios, better luck next time. Unless you're still in insolvency, then I guess not.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

First things first, I would like to say that I am a huge fan of Wolverine, both in comic form and movie form. I think what Hugh Jackman does for the character is complimentary, despite him being too tall. And even though the Wolverine origins movie was kind of crap, I can still appreciate it for being an action movie and think it accomplished what it set out to do.

Hugh Jackman is passionate about the character and has already said that the next installment, which will be set in Japan, will actually be the movie they intended to make first, but because Fox is producing and not Marvel they just couldn't do that.

With that in mind, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game was a pleasant surprise for me. I think it helps that the game was in production long before the movie, and only became a movie tie-in later. This puts it above the other X-Men movies because it had more time and thought put into it. And this is all apparent when playing the game.