Can you play Last Ninja 2 on Wii? Shuriken!

In the second game of System 3’s once-lauded series, the last ninja finds himself mysteriously dumped in modern-day New York (well, the New York of 1988, hence the distinct lack of dozens of Starbucks). Once again, his mission is to defeat the evil shogun Kunitoki, with only his wits, weapons and a dreadful control method to aid him.

Plot-wise, this is the kind of high-concept garbage that makes for dodgy Hollywood movies (”Hey! Let’s put a caveman in 2008! No, wait! How about a rap star in the 1800s?”), but the juxtaposition of ninja and New York somehow works, resulting in the best title in the Last Ninja series.

The refined graphics go some way to help, and the variety of locations—Central Park, downtown, sewers, an opium factory, an office block—offer a sense of variety and real-world wonder that the original game and its sequel can’t match. Sonically, the game also appeals, with Matt Gray’s thumping SID tunes driving you on.

Where the game fails, much like the original, is in its lack of gameplay. Combat is tedious and borderline canned, and gauging distances for numerous fussy jumps is regularly made problematic by the isometric viewpoint. On the C64, this is bad enough, but Wii owners will likely find the game an exercise in frustration when playing using the Wii remote.

My advice is to leave your happy childhood memories of the game alone, along with those for things like Thundercats, Bagpuss and The A Team, which are also rubbish in the cold, harsh light of the modern day.

The Last Ninja 2 is available now on Virtual Console for 500 Wii points (£3.50ish). As Nebulus came out at the same time, you should get that instead. It was also glossy and visually exciting in the 1980s, but it happens to still be a decent game.

No, I’m the last ninja! No, I’m the last ninja! Etc.

A chip off the old Prog

Henry Flint is, without doubt, one of the finest artists in 2000 AD’s current roster, and has provided exciting takes on Nemesis the Warlock, Judge Dredd and A.B.C. Warriors. Judge Dredd is, again without doubt, one of the finest comic-book characters the world has ever seen. Why, then, does this collection not excite?

Primarily, the problem is that this book feels like a selection of leftovers. Although there are a couple of prime cuts (Turkey Shoot, following the adventures of genetically modified turkeys, trying to escape death at Christmas in Mega-City One, is one of the finest Dredd one-offs of recent years), most of the choices are less than inspired. There’s a mediocre Ocean’s 13 parody, a Robbie Morrison-scripted effort that doddles along until it hits one of the most wrong Dredd panels to have appeared since the strip’s very gestation (showing that Morrison clearly didn’t have a handle on the character), and a few other throwaway tales.

Some substance appears at the very end, in the form of The Gingerbread Man, a gritty murder mystery that involves P.J. Maybe, although this would have been better included in a second volume about the illiterate psychopath. At any rate, it’s too little too late.

This selection was undoubtedly restricted by Flint’s most important Dredd work having already been published in the Aliens crossover and Total War, but it serves as a warning that even a Judge Dredd book by one of the best artists in British comics is only as good as its storylines, and those in this collection rarely rise above average.

Judge Dredd: The Henry Flint Collection is available now for the princely sum of £12.99. Alternatively, grab the far superior Flint-illustrated Total War for a pound less and spend the change on sweets. For more information about 2000 AD graphic novels, check out the 2000 AD Books website.

Soon to be gathering dust

Namco hates you. That’s the only conclusion I can reasonably draw from the company’s decision to release Namco Museum DS in its current form. Although not quite as stingy as previous Namco collections for Nintendo hand-helds, you still only get eight games for your dosh, and one of those is The Tower of Druaga. Plus, most of the rest are the usual suspects that get churned out time and time again, including Pac-Man, Xevious and Galaga. Considering the recent Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection featured well over a dozen titles, DS owners would be right in feeling short-changed.

As is typical of Namco compilations, the ports are pretty good, and the interface is one of the best I’ve seen on a DS-based compilation. The game screen can be rotated, to avoid squish-o-vision, and geeks can muck about with dip switches ad-nauseum. There’s also a surreal and unsettling ‘music box’, where characters from the featured titles dance like maniacs to tunes and sound effects from the compilation’s games.

This collection’s saving grace is undoubtedly Pac-Man VS., a four-player wireless effort that is roughly the videogame equivalent of tag crossed with Pac-Man. Three players become the ghosts, while the fourth controls Pac-Man. If a ghost is successful in grabbing the jaundiced pill-popper, the relevant player assumes that role, and the first person to amass a points target is crowned king of retroville.

Sadly, though, it’s not enough. Namco has a massive back catalogue to draw from, and against the 15-game feast that is Konami Arcade Classics, Namco’s effort feels comparatively pale and shallow, despite the polish and multiplayer Pac-Man shenanigans.

Namco Museum is available now for Nintendo DS for the princely sum of 25 quid. Wait a few months and it’ll inevitably end up in the bargain bins, whereupon it’ll actually be worth the money.