Ninja or Shogun?
Review Version - Amstrad CPC
Year - 1988
Developer - Alternative Software Ltd.
Story
You are Phil “Pookie” Wheeler, the unofficial BMX Ninja, and after a hard day's training, you are making your way home when you get attacked by a rival gang. They want your street cred and your title.
You know, the unofficial one you just call yourself. Makes you wonder why they don’t just call themselves unofficial BMX Ninjas as well. What are you gonna do, complain about it to the international unofficial BMX ninja federation?
In order to prove to yourself and your girlfriend that you are capable of being called a BMX Ninja (unofficially, of course), you will need to do ninja things on the BMX. If you don’t, you will lose your title and your dignity (although I am wondering how much of that anyone who calls themselves a BMX Ninja has).
Damn she is good looking...
Also apparently your girlfriend doesn’t hang around with losers. If you lose, she will leave you. Given she does hang around with people who call themselves BMX Ninjas, I really have to wonder what her definition of a loser actually is.
Apparently, though, if you win, you get the ultimate reward from her. I am really hoping it’s some kind of belt or a trophy, something respectable and not what I feel the game is implying.
Champion or not (unoffically)
In order to win the unofficial title, you need to ride your bike, very, very slowly towards another person who is also riding their own bike, very, very slowly towards you. The goal is to knock them off their bike by using a variety of tricks you have spent years learning and perfecting.
This isn't a low quality gif, this is the real speed!
These tricks involve bunny hops and spins and… oh, that’s it. Wow, so I was basically a BMX Ninja because I could do both of those and I didn’t spend years learning either of them. Hell, I could ride non-handed, I am practically a god in this game!
Your opponent has the same huge arsenal of tricks to use against you, so you can’t lose concentration for a moment in case they… erm… ride their bike towards you, really slowly.
I will be honest, when I first started playing I assumed it was a bit like a trick-off. I was thinking a West Side Story kinda deal but instead of dancing and brownface it was BMX tricks. Then I thought it was a game of chicken and I had to push the other biker as far back as I could. Then for some random reason they fell off their bike even though I was nowhere near them.
I am still not sure exactly how the computer determines when either you or the enemy falls off their bike.
Ropey Geography
Apparently I have to beat 8 of the rival gang members before I win the stage. Then I move to the next stage, of which there are six. These take place in Miami Beach, a California seafront, a Dallas oil field, New York City, Times Square and Cape Canaveral.
Now, given you are apparently on your way home from a hard day's training, how do you manage to then go to six different places in the same day? This game is confusing on a geographic level as well as a physics one.
I actually quite like the animations for the riders. Sure, they are a solid block of colour but they do look like BMXers and the animation is actually quite fluid. Why both you and the rival gangs are the same colour, I can’t answer that one. Would a different colour for the rival gang have been that hard to pull off?
The different backgrounds are a nice touch and actually decently drawn, so I can forgive the weird geography of the game.
Overall, the name BMX Ninja made me think you are actually fighting using your bike, which on the surface you kind of are, but the surface is very thin, like Pringle thin. The moves you pull off are basic, the control system is awkward and the collision detection appears to be random.
The different locations are a nice touch but they add nothing to the gameplay. The beach doesn’t make it hard to pedal, for example, although given how slow they already pedal, that might be a good thing.
I tried to look online for a review from a magazine at the time and couldn’t find one, even Amstrad Action had somehow avoided it.
I’m off now to claim my unofficial BMX Ninja crown, Simon “Chubby” Davies out!
Yes, that is me wearing a transformers (bumblebee) t-Shirt.
BMX Ninja
A BMX game where you slowly ride towards other BMX riders and attempt to knock them off their bikes using a surprisingly limited selection of tricks.
The animations and backgrounds are decent, but the limited gameplay, awkward controls and seemingly random collision detection make BMX Ninja a rather questionable BMX experience.