Ninja Commando

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You are a Ninja, jumping over pits and dodging obstacles and defeating other ninjas is the only way to survive! Every few alien kills grant you with a weapon, starting with shurikens, grenades, a flame thrower and finally a machine gun! Enemy ninjas attack randomly comong out of openings and buildings and your ninja is instantly killed upon a contact with any enemy or when falling inside a dangerous pit. Enemies that just appear from an opening will flash for 1-2 secs and will not kill you! Note that each level has a bonus (points) timer but overall the gameplay is quite tough.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Ninja Commando on the Atari XL/XE computers features nice graphics, although the backgrounds do not vary much. The sprites are tiny and simplistic, cool and fast, but they also look a bit blocky on the Atari. The game's fast animation and scrolling are making it playable enough, a fact that does not apply to the CPC and ZX counterparts as they both suffer from low framerate. Comparably, among all four 8bit versions the C64 looks, sounds and plays better. The sound on the Atari is pretty good and includes a great intro tune and a few nice sound effects during gameplay.