If you missed the 1980s, it's difficult to explain just how important ninjas were to the pop culture of the decade. The global zeitgeist was transfixed by Japan's mythical shadow warriors, and stealthy assassins appeared in everything, from movies to breakfast cereals to mutated amphibians. Video games were no exception, but few captured the essence of what made ninjas so popular as did Capcom's Strider, which allowed players to climb walls, flip around like acrobatic lemurs and slice through enemies as fast as their greasy digits could mash arcade cabinet's attack button.

Now, after 25 years of relative obscurity, Strider has returned. The ninja's latest mission features modern flair and a new world to explore, but at its core Strider is recognizable thanks to intuitive controls, an immediately responsive main character and reflex-dependent stage design. It may not be perfect, and most of the novel ideas in Strider can be traced to earlier games, but the end result is an engrossing adventure that cleverly blends the old with the new.