Price: £29.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: Yes DTS sound: No Shinobido: The Way of the Ninja has many a moment that makes you want to shout with joy as you play it, but if your character was to do this then he'd soon be dead as the way of the ninja is to remain as silent as possible as you go about your deadly business. It's the late 16th century and the back story tells us that at the end of the Muromachi Period there's a civil war about to break out, including the Utakata, long peacefully ruled by the House of Icihjo (why is Jo itchy?). Yes, you get the impression that the storyline does tend to be the kind of thing that'll be instantly forgettable so I'll be brief. The fact is that your House used to be in alliance with the Asuka Ninja Clan, but now they're all dead so, as you might expect, it seems to fall to you alone to get done everything of which you're asked.

Yes, that's right, it's one man against the world, heading off to kick ninja butt, but bear in mind that while you're meant to behave in a stealth-like fashion, if you do get some people's backs up and they call for back-up (ooh, that sort-of rhymed), then you'll be swamped and the Help FAQ tells you to run away from heavy fights that you can't win. You're there to accept missions and get rewarded in cash which you can use to purchase additional health packs and items to attack such as shuriken. Oh, and the 'How to' helpfile, in the form of advice scrolls, makes all forms of combat look easy, but certainly not in a fast battle. Shinobido is a game that requires patience and dexterity similar to that of the Hitman series, even though it doesn't quite reach that game's heights, otherwise you'll attract such unwelcome attention, so it's best to plan out your method of attack as to who you're going to kill first. Watch the way they walk back and forth like a sentry, then enjoy the great fun as you creep up behind them and slash their throat and, thus, kill 'em! You'll hear a 'swish' sound of your sword as you approach and, effectively, know that you can perform the deadly deed. If you kill someone in a building then try and drag the corpse out of the way if there's likely to be someone walking by any time soon. If you're out and about in a town square when you're committing murder then you definitely don't want this to be discovered. As such, they can sometimes be dumped down a nearby well so no-one will be any the wiser.

One of the first things you'll notice as you inevitably get into trouble with the locals is that the controller vibrates when you're panicking, to simulate your heartbeat. This is quite handy because that, coupled with the music that you hear, will give you an indication of whether you're likely to be safe if you think you've escaped the eye of the enemy. In fact, at times it can get very fast so in one sense it's quite difficult and will take a long time to master, leading to great longevity here. However, unless you're being followed by some of the more expert types across the enemies you'll face, you can jump up and run across rooftops to avoid being seen by them, which highlights the often poor AI as you can easily hide away and they soon forget about you. I found this particularly daft in a reconnaissance mission I passed because four ninja guys were following me and I evaded their stares and swords by jumping up onto the roof of a wooden hut. Once they'd got on with their own business again there would often be one just standing about not paying attention to what was going on behind him upon which I could strike. Naturally, this disturbed the others and we went through this cycle until they were all dead and the mission was therefore complete.

Of the items available to you to use, the sword is easily the weapon of choice. It can get you out of a bind if cornered by simply thrashing it about and, when you kill someone, you can grab their sword and use two at once. This doesn't work for too long as your man has a tendancy to throw one of them away when you'd rather he held onto it. The grapple hook is good fun, used in similar fashion to Spiderman's web-slinging antics, but the control system used to select an item and then use it by focusing on what you want to grapple onto can get too complex at times and if you're being chased by someone then forget it - just leap onto a wall and there's bound to be a roof nearby. Similarly, in the heat of battle, to select and throw accurately certain items you've bought beforehand, such as a shuriken. It's so much easier to just hack'n'slash with your sword. That said, once you've got the jist of this title, and it will take a few hours to do so, you can perform pretty cool moves and a few different attack combos like jumping about and snapping someone's neck or grappling with them. Try to avoid the latter if others might be nearby since if you don't kill the one with which you're grappling, you'll both spend a moment to catch your breath and it's at that point where the others will strike. One slightly annoying this is the game's autosave feature so if you screw up a mission you can't redo it, you lose 'trust' and have to soldier on and rebuild that trust, by either doing some easier, less-rewarding missions or staying home and defending your garden from baddies. Without checking again, I think this is turn offable but the missions and locations do get a bit repetitive, as do the backdrops, so the same one will come up again in some form or another if not the same mission again itself. In fact, I killed some bigwig a second time within the space of a few missions, thinking it couldn't really be him again, surely? The names of them aren't easily memorable so I just made an assumption. Still, it was good fun to slash his throat again...

In this title's cut-scenes, the mystical stuff does tend to ramble on a bit. Inbetween assignments, you can also read letters on scrolls but they don't seem to add anything to the experience unless you really buy into the atmosphere as more than just an enjoyable fighting game. And if you do then what will spoil it is not only some weird camera angle issues when involved in a heavy fight by a wall, but also the fact that all the enemy ninja sound like Mick Jagger, such is their accent; and when you jump and strike out, you make a sound similar to when Pete from Big Brother 7 would knock out a quick "Wank!" Overall, Shinobido: The Way of the Ninja is a great piece of gaming fun but might not be to everyone's taste so you may wish to try a rental first, particularly since the graphics are far from the best we've come to expect on the PS2. They move fast, but there's jaggies aplenty more frequently than is good for a console that can avoid them when it wants to. The assassination missions are far more fun to play than deliveries or collections. If I wanted the latter two I'd get a job as a courier(!) After all, who can pass up the chance to be even more sneaky than I've described so far and stab through paper-thin walls to kill a baddie? Either way, whichever type of mission you're setting off on, if you get stuck then pay heed to the compass Arrow at the bottom-right of the screen which will show you the way to go.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2006.