Movies and video games often seem to cover a lot of the same ground. The ways in which they tell stories, convey action and elicit emotion seem to be increasingly similar while yielding mixed results. You might recall the loads of bad movies based on mediocre video games, or vice versa, as well as the atrocious full motion video games of the early CD-ROM era, all examples of taking the idea a bit too far. Ninja Blade is the newest game I've found to be suffering from this same problem, and I can't help but think that the people who worked on it must have wanted a career in making movies, not games.

That being said, the first thing I would've thought they'd excel at would be the narrative. I'm generally not big on many Japanese games, but the entire setup, cast of characters and story in Ninja Blade felt incredibly generic to me. Some crazy infection breaks out, mutates a bunch of people, the military flies in and lays waste to everything... Haven't we already heard this story in a hundred other books, movies and games before? The characters are stereotypical futuristic ninja types, covered in fancy looking armor and gadgetry and only able to speak in a gravelly voice. The setting was the only part I found to be unique or interesting, as much of the skyline and many of the locations you'll visit were created with their real world counterparts in mind.

Once you're actually playing the game, the wannabe movie vibe really kicks in. Much of the action is your standard third person hack and slash, the camera following along behind your character as you fight your way through a nicely varied number of locations. Killing the mutated beasts you'll come across nets you experience points that can be spent on improving your character and learning new moves. Some of them are pretty fun in addition to being useful, such as the ability to run on walls. Later in the game you're able to purchase even more impressive powers that manage to keep things interesting a while longer.

I've never been a fan of quick time events. They're basically a cinematic that shows your character performing some predetermined action over which you have little to no control, all while you're tasked with pressing certain combinations of buttons that match up with the on screen action. It's sort of like playing Rock Band to a Steven Seagal movie, tapping buttons to punch or kick. The problem is that these always feel like a huge cop out to me. Instead of forcing me into a particular set of actions, I want the freedom to control my character just as I would at any other point in the game. Design a control system that allows me to pull off the moves you want me to perform, but on my own terms. Let me decide who to attack first, which attacks to use, and so on. Quick time events always feel like giant red flags that highlight a missed opportunity in a game.

I'm hesitant to be too hard on the game, because honestly, I can see how there might be fans out there who are into this sort of thing. Some of the quick time events are actually fairly stunning in the visual sense, one early example being a midair battle that takes place shortly after jumping out of the back of an airplane. In the same vein, I could point out a handful of others that weren't nearly as entertaining. It could just be that this game wasn't made for me.

Even if this sounds like your perfect game, I can't honestly recommend picking it up at full price. The sixty dollar price tag is a bit rich for what you get. Though after a future price drop I could see Ninja Blade hitting the spot during some long month with a slow release schedule. If you're still interested, there's a free demo on Xbox Live that you should surely check out first. If you manage to figure out whether it's really a movie or a game, let me know.

Title: Ninja Blade
Price: $59.99
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: M for Mature
Score: 5.0 out of 10