Ninja Training Games

Before beginning your new career as a ninja, take a look at the best ninja training games to hone your skills from the comfort (and safety) of home. Being a ninja is hard, dangerous work and it wouldn’t hurt to get a little practice in the digital world before you put on the black pajamas.  

1. "Ninja Reflex" This ninja training game available on PC and Wii presents you with a series of challenges which test your agility, reflexes and ability to think on your feet. Successfully completing challenges earns you belts and the respect of your ninja peers.
2. "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" This is the quintessential ninja training game. As one of two Tokugawa-era ninjas, you use stealth, agility, cunning and nifty ninja gear to complete assignments. In true ninja style, the best results are achieved when you use stealth rather than violence to accomplish objectives. But don’t worry, you can still assassinate people from the shadows.
3. "Metal Gear Solid" "Metal Gear Solid" is another game where brains trump brawn. As a special forces soldier code-named Solid Snake, you infiltrate the base of an elite military outfit gone rogue. Outnumbered and outgunned, you must rely on stealth to win.
4. "Sid Meier’s Pirates!" Everyone knows that pirates and ninjas have been mortal enemies ever since there were parrots and throwing stars. Play this sandbox pirate sim from the creator of "Civilization" and gain some insight into your swashbuckling foes.
5. "Ninja Gaiden" Being a ninja isn’t all throwing sharp things and stabbing people, but part of it is. "Ninja Gaiden" exposes you to those aspects of ninja life that actually do involve disemboweling large numbers of people. Additionally, it reinforces the fact that being a ninja is difficult.
6. "Assassin’s Creed" "Assassin’s Creed" is a game about a guy who is part of a quasi-monastic organization of trained killers able to perform breathtaking acrobatic feats, fall from tremendous heights without injury, hide in plain sight and kill his victims silently. Sound like anyone you know?
7. "Thief" "Thief" is the original stealth FPS. Don’t bother trying to fight the guards in the mansion your robbing; they’ll kill you in a heartbeat. Instead, use trick arrows to extinguish torches, cover hard surfaces with moss to quiet your footsteps and creep from shadow to shadow, lying in wait to knock passers-by unconscious and steal any keys they might happen to be carrying. If any game can train you to be a ninja, it’s "Thief."
8. "Rainbow Six" Some say that special forces and SWAT teams are today’s answer to the ninjas of old. In "Rainbow Six" you head an international team of counterterrorism experts on missions to eliminate terrorist threats across the globe. Using tactical planning, intelligence and the element of surprise, you gain the drop on your targets, eliminating them before they even know you’re there.
9. "Splinter Cell" Sam Fisher is the man the US government sends to solve problems when discretion is mandatory. "Splinter Cell" plays like a combination of "Thief" and "Rainbow Six"; generally, you’re better off sneaking past enemies rather than attacking them directly or knocking them unconscious and hiding the body. However, Sam can be authorized to take advantage of the “Fifth Freedom”—the permission to kill—to complete his missions. Success for Sam means operating in complete secrecy and only killing when absolutely necessary. Completing a level without ever being seen is excellent ninja training.
10. "Batman: Arkham Asylum" If you’ve seen the movie or read the comics, you know that Bruce Wayne goes through ninja training in order to become Batman. In "Arkham Asylum" you play the caped crusader as he retakes the famous nuthouse from the Joker. Although there is plenty of hand-to-hand combat, stealth—and the ubiquitous utility belt—are essential to survival when you’re outgunned and outnumbered.