The Ninja Captains are a team of cats trained in the mystical arts and are chilling out when a huge mechanical mouse starts terrorizing their home city of New York. Our crazy cats make a mistake and jump onto a plane by mistake and with a little misfortune find themselves travelling around the world before ending up back in New York for the final battle.

 

Each country has its own minigame, some of which are loosely themed on the area it’s based on like London, Venice, Antarctica and Sydney and each one is playable in single and four way multiplayer and are all surprisingly original when it comes to this sort of game.

 

 

There are 20 games in total to play that are unlocked throughout the story mode. Each one has a screen describing what is required before you jump into the madcap action. Each level is fun to play and will entertain youngsters for ages. The minigames are a crazy collection like the Airplane Absurdity level where you hold a sickbag for passengers to throw-up into, Blundering Barbers has you cut styles into huge Afro's by pointing with the Wii-mote, in Ninja Skydive you tilt the Wii-mote to fall through hoops, Penguin Flight is a bit like Space Harrier with your cats riding penguins and the cool Ice Fishing level where you cast with the Wii-mote and twist the nunchuck to reel in your catch is the pick of the bunch.

 

Whilst there are plenty of minigames the length of the story is a little concerning. It would have been nice to have had a few "episodes" of Ninja Captains to play through, giving it more replay value than just the multiplayer modes. Having just one story to play through was a little short and we ended up wanting to play more fun stories involving the Ninja Captains, fingers crossed for a follow-up then.

 

I am impressed with the presentation of Ninja Captains, being close to the sort of shows you see on children’s television with each cat having its own personality and with kids fighting over their favorite to play as, Warrior, Gadget, Fat, Clumsy, each looking cute and have some funny animation.

 

Ninja Captains is aimed at the younger gamer so the level design is simple, there are however some difficult levels that even older gamers may struggle with. The canoe race is one such level, with each controller corresponding to an oar and pushing both forward to get a good lead. The intro seemed a little too vague and it was only by trial and error that we worked out how to win the race. The Railroad Ride is also very hard, requiring timed jumps and ducks to avoid trees whilst riding the top of a train. There is a pattern but younger children just can't see it and caused a little frustration.

 

With most games aimed at teenagers and older members of families it is refreshing to have a game aimed at the much younger audience and they will certainly have a fun time playing it.