It is just the arcade game? I don't get the win here.

I'm tired of lazy arcade ports that pop up on Live, I thought everyone had agreed this was a needless endeavour after the appalling version of Tempest that appeared years ago, which hammered home the final nail.

No co-op/vs, no need for online, certainly no need for any achievements, and most likely very unimaginative image filters to make things look even worse on HDTV.

Wouldn't it be better for these things to be left as they are now? MAME has preserved previously neglected arcade games as best it can, I don't see what else there is to gain, certainly not for anything created in the 80s. Any other publishing of these games as-is is pure money grabbing cynicism, by companies who no longer know what they used to be.

Go Sega!

Yes yes, but this is Shinobi not some stupid spinny wireframe nonsense

Really this should have been ported to PS2 as a Sega Ages release eons ago. The fact that I will now be able to play full blown Shinobi on the tele with minimum fuss is great no?

If it's just the arcade game with no achievements or dip settings then this will suck a little, but at least peeps will be able to rediscover or maybe even discover the original and best game in the franchise.

MAME is all well and good, but the legality of it has always been a little grey afaik. Obviously I could quite happily MAME up Shinobi on the ol' Tele as I own the original PCB .

Wasn't Shinobi on the recent Mega Drive collection, in fact? Yeah it was, as an unlockable extra.

I recall that most of the games on that are being released standalone as downloads.

MAME itself is legal, Capcom themselves have let their games be licensed commercially and sold with MAME, and some of the Taito Collection code was based on or written by MAME developers.

ROM images illegally obtained are illegal. No grey area.

I assumed these were the Megadrive versions - Sonic 3, Shinobi, Phantasy Star 2, Altered Beast, Comix Zone & Gunstar Heroes all appear to be up.

By the way, the achievements for Shinobi are -

Complete The Game (25 points)
Finish the game.

Often Say Die (25 points)
Play through 20 player deaths, with difficulty set to Hardest.

Points III (25 points)
Score 300,000 points.

Perfect Challenge (25 points)
Complete a perfect bonus round.

Chopper Stopper (15 points)
Defeat the Black Turtle helicopter in Mission 2... with difficulty on Hardest.

Points II (15 points)
Score 80,000 points.

What's a Ninja? (15 points)
Complete Mission 1 without losing a life.

Negotiator (15 points)
Rescue 25 hostages.

Kick It (10 points)
Use Melee.

Points I (10 points)
Score 20,000 points.

It's Electric (10 points)
Use Lightning Magic.

Killer Winds (10 points)
Use Tornado Magic.

The disk collection version of Shinobi was arcade, this is probably the same code.

Most of the achievements seem trivial.

I didn't know that this had already been released as part of a pack. What the fuck is the logic in making it an unlockable bonus though eh? Should be headlining, not on the subs bench.

Marketing have a spreadsheet that uses the formula:

Sonic > Shinobi

I've been fiddling with the demos and one thing that struck me as odd is the scoring system (those that have one) which doesn't reset if you exhaust your lives and continue on, is this intended? I also expected Altered Beast to be a port of the arcade but turns out it's the MD version, I thought it was rather inconsistent to mix both arcade and console ports in this fashion.

I am tempted but I know I'll only play some of these once for points.

EDIT: Oopsies, I was wrong about AB, the MD cover art threw me off.

These games were all about the score, and to be able to continue and keep your score just makes a mockery of the leaderboards.

That's completely retarded. Scores should only be logged on the online leaderboards IF the player has not used a continue. Why did somebody not think about this ahead of time FFS.

The coin-op original would let you keep the score after continuing as well. There is a bit on the second level, just before the first encounter with the black turtle helicopter, that sends an endless supply of enemies your way, if you stand in the right place.

You could build up your score indefinitely at this point in the game, just keep dropping coins in. I beat my mate's all time best score by 10 points on the high score tables this way...

Totally, but that sort of works in the context of an arcade where there's a financial penalty in continuing. Plus the timer means you will need to keep feeding the machine to rack up truly impressive points. Considering the bonus points for no shuriken(sp?) and no ninjitsu stage completions dwarf the points you get from killing enemies you have to be one patient fella to grind your way to the top of the table.

Online and global is a different matter. What's the point if it's just about how many hours you put in. Might as well play World of Bloody Warcraft.

It was a one-off, and I only did it to annoy my friend. Needless to say, it worked a treat