First up is Mini Ninjas.  Mini Ninjas is aimed at young children to promote exploration in a large world. The world is not that big and the game is very linear but it does promote exploration by way of collectable items. You can collect many new magical powers throughout the game and of course you have your ninja skills. You can also choose up to 8 playable characters all with their own unique skills.  To also promote a friendly way of fighting without nastiness for the younger audience, whenever you kill an enemy they do not die but turn into an animal. You can also turn into any animal yourself to use their skills.

Mini Ninjas is a fun game and has some replayability when you want to go back and repeat a level to find the items you missed.  Lots to collect and great fun.  GOOD/10

“UP” is a new game from Disney Pixar which follows in the adventures of Russell and Carl – an elderly gentleman and a young boy – from the upcoming film UP due soon. Russell and Carl are tied by a very long piece of ribbon to a floating house.  You have to navigate through the levels and you can choose to play either of them at any time.  They follow each other so you can easily switch between them to do different tasks.  Some tasks require a certain character to play so you can switch when necessary.  It all seems an okay platforming game at first but you soon realise that the game is very broken and not very well programmed. Voice acting can be out of sync with what is happening and also voices get repeated a lot. The other problem is that when the computer controls your other character it is doing a terrible job and may miss jumps and die.  The game is very slow, cumbersome and and glitchy.  I do not recommend anybody buy this game full price.  Accept it gracefully as a gift or wait until it is in the bargain bin.  TERRIBLE/10

Ice Age 3 is another movie which has been transformed into a game. Ice Age 3 was actually released a few months ago but I have only just got around to playing it.  This game is incredibly fun and is the best of the 3 in this issue. In fact it is the best platformer released  this year.  You play as various characters from the film in various locations from the snow of the Ice Age to the jungles riddled with dinosaurs.  The game starts off feeling a little bit generic but soon it blows open and the levels become insanely fun.  To go with a fun game, the script is also quite funny. There are fruits to collect to spend in the Ice Age store on upgrades and you can collect weapons as you go, including a rocket launcher made of a giant bamboo cane!

Ice Age 3 has everything you can want from a platformer including typical platforming styles taken from the likes of Crash Bandicoot. The only downside is that it is quite short and I completed it in around the 5 hour mark.  So it is a short game but well worth playing.  It is probably not worth the full high street asking price at the moment, but try and get it second hand or wait until the price drops, it is definitely not one to be missed. GREAT/10