Controlling mobile phone games via device motion is not a new idea: as soon as camera phones became available, developers used the cameras for motion detection and moving crosshairs.
Ninja Strike is a Japan-themed game that puts you into the role of a ninja who must throw shuriken to free his “sensei”(aka teacher):
The game mechanics are rather simple. The arm at the bottom of the screen is moved around at a fixed speed (you can NOT influence the movement!!!), and you hit fire whenever you think that an enemy is “in range”:
Advancing from level to level is easy - all you need to do is survive and score an increasing number of kills:
At later levels, colorful enemies appear on the screen. Shooting them allows you to access a variety of special abilities like multiple shuriken or a “laser targeting sight”. Unfortunately, powerups expire rather quickly (indicated via the diamond at the bottom of the screen):
After having survived a few levels, enemies start to attack. You need to press the 5 key in time in order to block off attacks - the maximum time you can block is very limited, and the blocking process itself is annoyingly slow.
The plot and new game elements are explained in short “text slides” between the levels:
Finally: the camera interaction is limited to firing off shuriken. Performing a throwing motion in front of the camera fires off one shot - this has worked pretty well on my Nokia N71.
This review looked at version 1.04 of the game on a Nokia N71. Ninja Strike needs 4135KB of memory and can be installed onto an external memory card.
In the end, Ninja Strike is a very weird game - as the movement of the “hand” can not be controlled, the game is both an action game and a reaction tester. The motion control was rather unimpressive and is best left disabled. If the concept sounds appealing, get the free trial - the full version of the game costs and can be purchased at ClickGamer’s for 7 Euros (as of this writing).