Wimbledon, United Kingdom – In anticipation of IO Interactive’s new IP Mini Ninjas, the company has announced that a demo will be available for download on Xbox Live and PC on Wednesday, 19th of August. A Playstation 3 demo will be available on PSN a day later. Mini Ninjas will be available at retailers on the 8th of September in North America, and the 11th of September for the United Kingdom and most other PAL regions. Gamers from France or Germany will find the game on shelves at retailers a month later, from the 9th of October. Besides the platforms for which a demo will be released, the game will also be released for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS on the same dates.
Mini Ninjas was designed as a game to appeal to all audiences and IO Interactive claims that the final product will be both challenging and fun to play for adults, while being accessible enough for children. The game avoids killing enemies, but rather sees enemies as cursed animals that can be reverted back to their friendly state by defeating them through combat. This genre, which also includes games such as the movie-based Lego games and Viva Piñata, is slowly becoming more popular.
I had this one pegged as a kiddy piece of shovelware but I’m intrigued. Although I wish IO Interactive would just drop everything and listen to the fans and make Freedom Fighters 2.