Published: Sunday, 15th November, 2009 5:22pm

Ninja Captains

Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS

While party games are aimed at the entire family, younger members may still find your average Wii-fare a little too trying. Ninja Captains can help.

The Captains are four cute ninja cats who find themselves travelling the world to help thwart the meglomaniacal plans of a giant clockwork mouse. As they travel to each country they have a different minigames needing speed, timing or coordination to beat either in single or multiplayer zone.

Even for minigame purposes these are pretty odd in places - have you ever though of hacking Afros into different hairstyles? Ok, what about wielding sickbags for aeroplane passengers to vomit in? (no, we couldn't think how jiggling a paper bag in front of someone would help in the nausea stakes either).

While there are 20 different minigames to play the length of the game and its replay value as a whole is fairly sparse, although the charms of the cats - Warrior, Gadget, Fat and Clumsy - make up for some of the titles more obvious faults.

Overall if you have youngsters for whom the Mario Party or Mario and Sonic titles are a bit much this might be worth a go. But it doesn't provide as much of a kick as you'd expect ninjas to.

Three stars.

* Ninja Captains is out now.