A botched and bothersome attempt at bringing the stealth and skullduggery of ninja assassin gameplay from the Tenchu franchise to the wispy white wiles of motion-controls on Wii, Tenchu Shadow Assassins doesn't play half as good as it looks.

For a game that verily demands you walk through the most of it cock-kneed on tippy-toes, keeping to the shadows and shrubbery, subfloors and rafters, popping out only when some thug or guard has meandered into range of your sordid skill set of one back-stab or t'other, it sure doesn't make it easy.

Whoops, you're detected, quick, waggle the Wii-mote and hope you waggle into a shrub and not that there bonfire. Or quick, zoom into a first-person-perspective sword fight by playing Simon Says hold-the-Wii-mote-this-way, now hit-the-B-button, ha ha, didn't say Simon Says. No matter, try again; thugs and guards will reset and totally ignore the dead bodies left lying around from your previous try. The heck?

Tenchu Shadow Assassins is a good looking game by Wii standards -- when the view isn't obstructed by half a wall, anyway -- and the melodramatic cheeseball story it tells might well endear fans of the series... assuming said fans have a Wii, which they might not, as Tenchu games were heretofore the domain of PlayStations and Xboxes.

Regardless, Shadow Assassins will test your patience more than your ninja skills.

Tenchu Shadow Assassins TIP: At the title screen, hold C + Z and press Up, Left, Down, Right, Up, Left, Down, Right, Right, 1, 2 to unlock all normal items. For all secret items, hold C + Z and press Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, Right, Down, Left, Left, 1, 2.