Currently Playing: Shinobi.

Sega have released some more of their "classic" arcade and Mega Drive games on Xbox Live Arcade. Not normally something that interests me as I'm boycotting Xbox Live Arcade now the prices have started to get a bit ridiculous.

However Shinobi was always a favourite of mine and at only 400 points it's almost a certain purchase. I downloaded the trial version to make sure it was the one I remebered enjoying in the Arcade and not the disappointing Revenge of Shinobi (or whatever it was called) that I didn't like on Mega Drive.

It's arcade perfect and just as I remembered it and it plays nicely on the 360 pads with the shurikens having the same satisfying feel to wizzing across the screen. What I wasn't expecting was the brutal difficulty. As a relatively poor kid I always used to consider continuing a bit of a cheat and poor value. Better still to start from the beginning and get better. I can clearly remember the first boss battle and the between level first person bonus level.. But now it's brutally hard. Consider I had five lives per go compared to the three back in the day and I still had to continue several times just to finish the first level (where the trial version ended). I am now rubbish at games? Are the reactions not what they where?

Compare and contrast to modern ninja actioner Ninja Blade, which to be fair I suppose has countless lives and continues, but it way more complicated in terms of controls and what it expects you to be able to do. I've concentrated on doing a mission a day and I'm onto the last mission now having completed several, what I had thought where, brutal boss battles along the way and was quietly thinking that I did still have the skills..

Shinobi has left me in doubt.. Are even modern games with all their complexities and controls strolls in the park? Are my reactions just not what they where? Was it the countless practice I was prepared to put in on a Friday afternoon with my school dinner money? Answers on a postcard..