We won't look down on you if Tecmo's announcement for Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword was the first time you'd ever heard of ninjas sneaking onto a handheld console. The stealthy assasins carry out their orders so efficiently and silently, most people aren't even aware of a ninja's presence until they see their own blood on the wall sprayed from an expert slash across their necks.

Modojo has a lengthy feature tracking portable appearances by ninjas like Shinobi and Goemon, following their shuriken-throwing adventures from the Game Boy all the way up to the Nintendo DS. Our favorite game from the bunch is Ninja Five-O, a Bionic Commando-esque side scroller that was released for the GBA. If there's one thing terrorists fear, it's ninja cops swinging through their defenses!

We all already know that ninjas are better than pirates. They are crafty, skilled, live by honor, have a dojo and hide in trees. How could some sea-dwelling, loud-mouthed pirate ever beat that? It couldn't. End of discussion.

Recently, ninjas were very disappointed by one of their own. Tenchu: Dark Secret just didn't quite represent.

In fact, it did such a horrible job of holding up the ninja honor that IGN only scored it a 3.5. Ouch Tenchu, ouch.

We didn't quite understand what went wrong. The PlayStation version rocked and now we have this awkward DS version with dodgy controls, crap graphics and mute-worthy sound.

Looks like the score for Tenchu: Dark Secret is now:

Pirates: 1
Ninjas: 0