A notch above “Monkey Tennis” in terms of great ideas, Ninja Golf was dreamt-up and released for the Atari 7800, way back in 1990.

As an idea: Ninja Golf is not a bad one. Mixing golf with beat ’em up elements sounds like it could be fun.

Where this game falls down, though, is in the playability stakes. Ninja Golf is too repetitive and not really playable enough for my liking. Little actual skill is required – outside of the golf segments. The fighting sections are slow and uninteresting. The golf sections are basic at best.

Atari should have given us a decent game with Ninja Golf, but in the end we only got a mediocre one. As far as I’m aware: Ninja Golf didn’t appear anywhere other than the Atari 7800 either. Surprise, surprise.

More: Ninja Golf on Wikipedia