SHINOBI

Released in 1987 the classic sega arcade game shinobi sees you taking control of Joe Musashi a ninja. Although unsurprisingly not looking like the stereotypical ninja from the movies of that era. Your task is to rescue hostages taken by the crime syndicate NeoZeed (yeah gay name for a criminal gang) as well as ninja kicking anyones ass that is unfortunate enough to get in your way.



Yep we are talking standard levels with end bosses type fare here. Joe (yep shit name for what is supposed to be a ninja) moves from left to right throwing his ninja stars at the numerous bad guys who are trying to stop him. These range from your standard run straight towards you with no respect for their own safety low level grunts to guys with guns bigger guys who throw swords and a bunch of ninjas with various attack patterns depending on their colour. in the later stages you also get attacked by frog men (thats divers not men dressed as kermit) bazooka wielding military nutcases and bald monk type guys with big fucking sticks. Joe’s (yup still a gay name) weapons including stars that can be upgraded to bullets also include punches kicks and a sword for close combat melee as well as the (obligatory for its time) smart bomb which can clear the screen of all enemies.

 It comes in pretty handy on the later stages and can take the forms of tornado lightning or a bunch of Joe ghosts that leap around the screen beating seven bells of shit out of the bad guys. The end of level bosses are a mixed bag which include ten foot tall armour clad samurai and helicopters as well as some stupid ass machine that you have to shoot through before it knocks you into an electric field. There is no faggot health bar here its one hit and your dead with the respawn points being massively unfair add that to (in spite of the arcade version) no continues for the last stage and you have one hell of a pain in the ass game that i never managed to beat back in the day.

There was also a bonus stage between stages that you had to throw stars at ninjas in a first person perspective. Clear this stage and you earned yourself an extra life to carry over to the next level. Chances are you would only earn 1 life from the first bonus stage subsequent ones being too difficult to complete. All said and done it was still a pretty cool coin sapping experience for its time and made its way cross to a few home console platforms including the sega master system and the nec turbografx. Its worth having a go if you have never played it and can always be downloaded on mame as well as a rom on the many emulated consoles flying around the net. Anyone expecting Xbox graphics will be sorely disappointed but anyone with a healthy respect for retro games or a genuine interest of how games ued to be will find some enjoyment here