Tenchu Z is to stealth action what Beverly Hills Ninja is to martial arts films. The correlation between those two properties is pretty simple: both provide a fun, albeit shallow, form of entertainment. This Xbox 360 exclusive plays well enough, but it is hardly the poster child for how to do a stealth action game right.

Part of the problem is that Tenchu Z has been passed around more than a pack of smokes in prison. The last hands to touch it were Activision's, and after some mediocre success with the series, they then sold it to From Software, who passed it off to developer K2. The series hasn't seen much evolution in all its days, though this new game does try to mix things up a little with some new kinds of gameplay and a more customizable protagonist taking center stage.

Tenchu Z is a mission-based third-person action game where you take your marching orders in between stages from a giant map. As you clear missions, new ones open up, and while there's a false sense of variety as you read the descriptors for each, most seem to be the same old stuff over and over again. Perhaps you are asked to take out a certain target, or rendezvous with a certain target, or even collect objects, but it all boils down to pretty much the same thing.

During all these missions you must use a combination of concealment, evasion and assassination to get the job done. You can kill as many combatants as you want either using stealth or a full frontal attack, but the object is to be a "ninja" so it can have an adverse affect on your overall final scoring - which in turn affects your cash payout at the end of it all. But if you feel the need to kill anything that moves there's nothing to stop you from doing so if you don't mind the penalty.

Tenchu Z has a lot of little problems that equate to sloppy execution, poor presentation and a general mediocre feel. But oddly enough, the gameplay is fun even though it's flawed. The fun is in the myriad of ways that you can stealth kill opponents - from a hanging position, up against a wall, from behind, etc. These positional kills are certainly what players want from a stealth assassin game, and Tenchu Z does its best to provide plenty of those cool moments.

But what hinders this somewhat is the brain-dead AI that ignores a lot of what you'd expect it to pay attention to. For example, while one enemy might see a body and be alarmed, others will simply walk by without a care in the world. It's also worth noting that these enemies often suffer from short term memory loss. You would think that killing 4 people and then running away would normally raise some red flags in an encampment chalked with a bunch of cutthroat bad guys- but not in this game. Killing some people, running away, hiding and waiting will gain you a free pass with these forgetful warriors.