One of the funny side effects of being a broke little kid growing up during the heyday of arcades is that I probably spent more time watching video games than actually playing them. I mean, once you run out of quarters that's kind of it, you know" So how would I spend that extra time at the arcade before mom said she'd pick me up" I'd just watch. Sometimes I'd be able to watch an actual live human being playing a game, but more often than not I'd just check out each game's attract mode. Video games, and especially arcade games with their superior (at the time) visuals, were mesmerizing to me, so I found great satisfaction just watching them in motion even if it was just a short demo mode. I have a great fondness for attract modes due to that, and even as my gaming turned more to increasingly powerful home consoles, I'd still just sometimes kick back and watch an attract mode just because it entertained me. Heck, even as a nearly forty year old a game's attract mode can still make some great background noise while working. Maybe I'm just weird.
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Anyway, back in the day one of the coolest attract modes around was that for Sega's 1987 action platformer Shinobi. The platforming parts were just so-so, but the attract mode also featured the game's bonus stage, which was a first-person ninja star throwing game that was the absolute coolest thing to me. This was the late eighties and ninja stars were the epitome of aweso...