5

4 /5

A bad name with even worse box-art, Ninja Cop hit the scene with a collective shrug by the gaming population. And then, suddenly, people started playing the game within. It's a completely old-school inspired action design that melds such classics as Capcom's Bionic Commando, Sega's Shinobi, and Namco's Rolling Thunder, and what's more it's incredibly fun and challenging -- a side-scrolling arcade-style game that could only really thrive these days on the 2D-happy Game Boy Advance platform. It's one of the toughest games to find in the used cartridge market; finding it won't make you rich, though. It's only valuable in the "awesome gameplay" sense...and in this case, it's worth its weight in gold.