N+

"Unresponsive controls, ridiculous difficulty and a broken save system. Please, save your money."

For 800 MS points, I expected a lot more out of this game.

N+ is a simple platformer with a few puzzle elements thrown in. That's basically it. Your goal is to get your ninja from point A to point B without dying (from obstacles like mines, rocket launchers, lasers, etc.) or running out of time. Getting gold nuggets increases said time. It's a very basic game, but it does have a lot of content. Unfortunately for N+, quality > quantity. Let's start with my main gripe, the terrible controls.

The control in this game is seriously flawed and unresponsive... and the sad thing is, this is where the game's true difficulty lies. Your ninja controls like a someone with an elephant strapped to their back on the moon, and you'll almost ALWAYS die simply because your movement is so sluggish and slow or the action you meant to do just won't work. To make matters worse, the terrain affects how you move too much. For instance, if you want to jump off a ledge, if you hit the corner of said ledge you will just flat out not jump. Now, factor that in with the fact that you have many actions you can do (wall jumping, sliding down walls, etc.) and you feel you are always fighting the controls. Words really can't do justice to how horrible the controls are, just go download the demo and play a bit and you'll see what I mean.

As if fighting the controls wasn't bad enough, most of the levels in this game are insanely difficult and frustrating. Now, I love Contra games so I don't care if a game is challenging or not, but N+ is challenging in the WRONG ways. Instead of challenging your brain with puzzles or recognizing patterns or something like that, the game just throws as many cheap obstacles at you as possible. Check this video out to see what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7hEqkDesg

Now, just imagine trying to get past a level with 3 homing rocket launchers firing at you, all the while trying to fight the horrible unresponsive controls and the glitchy slow movement of your character. It's a nightmare, and its just not fun.

And the last problem with this game is without a doubt the WORST... and thats a glitchy save system. I'm not sure what causes it, or why it happens, but there should be no excuse for such a simple little game to have a problem as big as this one. Basically, me and a friend beat 7 frustrating episodes (which equals 35 levels), and we decide to call it quits for the night. We exit and we saw the game save, but when we go to play where we left off the next day, I don't have any of the levels unlocked but he does. Now this wouldnt be that bad, except I CAN'T PLAY THESE LEVELS WITH HIM UNLESS I HAVE THEM UNLOCKED AS WELL. Amazing. And yes, I've read around, and its not just me who has experienced this. Many people have complained about this problem on this very site's messageboard, and I can honestly say I feel deeply for them.

N+ could be a fun game if only everything wasn't so frustrating. Whether its the glitched save system, the terrible controls or the insanely difficult levels, you're guaranteed to pull your hair out if you play this atrocity of an XBLA game. Avoid this game like the plague.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/08

Game Release: N+ (US, 02/20/08)