Well for those who have been reading my reviews and what not about those old school arcade games, I would fathom a guess that most of you were waiting to see when and if I was going to review the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games. Well Guess what it turtle time as I review both great classics in one review; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. I will admit like the other 80 billion kids during my day of awesome 80's and early 90's cartoons I was hooked on these guys. I watched the TV series I played one of if not the hardest video game ever (NES TMNT). I was hooked enough that I bought the bought the cheesy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live concert video. Strangely enough that VCR cassette is still here in the house(not in my room). Of course I seen all 3 movies and even seen a few episode of the live action tv show as well. I seen a couple of episodes of the new stuff never really got into it as I am a little older and a little wiser. No I never saw the new movie either, was tempted to see it but I think you owuld have to know about the new tv series in order to figure out what going in that movie. Anyways not to stray to much off course it's a REVIEW TIME!!

*Que Music* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles..Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles..Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles..Turtles in a half shell..TURTLE POWER!!

First up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles



Some screen shots


Game Maker: Konami

Year: 1989

Levels: 7

Price: 50 cents

Sound: 10 (The sound to this game was awesome especially the dialogue that was used for the character, very clear and the music was good as well)

Graphics: 10 (The graphics were clean, cartoony detailed. Animation sequences were smooth as well)

Mini Games: none

Difficulty: 5 before the bosses and a nice spike of 9 on the bosses (My reason for this rating is that most of the time your fighting foot soldiers of various colors and small fries, usually your life bar goes down over time. However, during the boss fights they have a bit more kick to them and take longer to finish off, expect to go through many quarters during a single boss level). Now mind you that was solo play at 4 players I would bump it up to 7 because your dealing with a lot more small fries and if you don't pay attention you get SHELL SHOCK, but the boss rating is still the same.

Gameplay: Your simple button mashing interface with jump and turtle specific weapon, with your assortment of traps, exploding cans and pizza boxes. Which includes hundreds of foot soldiers, mousers, Roadkill Rodneys and with a boss at the end of each stage except for the highway stage.

Plot: Well there two objectives basically save April and then beat on Shredder and his minions, that about it really. Yeah kinds of disappointing, but the replay value is like 10x better.

First Impressions To my recollection I only played this a few times, I stuck with the port, of course I never really got that far I believe the farthest I gotten on quarters was level 3 (sewers) and I always might my demise there. I might have have dropped at least $5 a game worth of quarters, so I would say maybe $30 I spent total . Of course I spent most of my time with port on the Nintendo so that would be the reason why I spent so little. However for a game beyond it's time the game play was awesome, since you have constant enemies on both sides after you so you never had a pause anywhere to rest your fingers from jamming them into the console like that.

18 years laterWell I got the game and still was challenging, I believed about pumped in about $50-60 in quarters to finish this game with all four turtles, of course instead of playing smart to see how long I could last against the bosses I just went full force. But I was glad to finish another great arcade classic, especially since they showed shredder's ugly pixelated face ahahaha.

Overall Ranking This game gets a solid 10 just because of it's replay value, sound, graphics and game play. Although there was not a solid story to this that didn't really matter to me to much and most gamers to begin with, so worth the game play in arcades that still holds this game.




Some screen shots



Game Maker: Konami

Year: 1991

Levels: 9

Price: 50 cents

Sound: 10 (The sound to this game was awesome especially the dialogue that was used for the character, very clear and the music was good as well)

Graphics: 10 (The graphics were clean, cartoony detailed. Animation sequences were smooth as well)

Mini Games: none

Difficulty: 5 before the bosses and a nice spike of 9 on the bosses (My reason for this rating is that most of the time your fighting foot soldiers of various colors and small fries, usually your life bar goes down over time. However, during the boss fights they have a bit more kick to them and take longer to finish off, expect to go through many quarters during a single boss level). Now mind you that was solo play at 4 players I would bump it up to 7 because your dealing with a lot more small fries and if you don't pay attention you get SHELL SHOCK, but the boss rating is still the same.

Gameplay: Your simple button mashing interface with jump and turtle specific weapon, with your assortment of traps, exploding cans and pizza boxes. Which includes hundreds of foot soldiers, mousers, Roadkill Rodneys and with a boss at the end of each stage except for the highway stage. This time though they added more into the special attacks, they included included running attacks and a special pizza box with which I believe to be a 5 sec 360 degree attack that hits anything in that turtles path.

Plot: Well this time have a better plot then the previous game, because this time Shredder and Krang, stole the Statue of Liberty, but to set the turtles up and time warp them into the past and into the future and it's the turtles goal to get back to the present and finish Shredder and Krang once again. SHELLTASTIC!!!

First Impressions Games was 10x as much fun as the original and just as difficult, I believe the farthest I got on quarters was the 4th stage, but most of the time I caught by the techno-turtle at stage 3 most of the time. I would say I was in the $50-60 range in the amount of times I played that. I sometimes soloed or tag teamed with other players and enjoyed it every time.

15 years later Well low and behold I got a hold of this title pumped in at least $100 in quarters to finish the game, but of course I think I pumped in at least another $30-40 after running out so quickly. This game was still fun to play even now, with lots of replay value and of course beating on hundreds of foot soldiers for fun. Again if you can find this bad boy laying around bring about $100 and about half that in quarters.

Overall Ranking 10 easy, the second game improved greatly what the first was lacking in terms of what you could do as a shell kicking, foot stomping (how about that for a pun), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

All in all these games were perfect and only help the arcade franchise grow in the late 80's and early 90's, of course like most thims, time makes a fool of us all and the turtles arcade franchise would end there.


So now for a catchy slogan.....

"Games don't get old, just people!"



Images and of course games are copyrighted to it's perspective owners blah blah blah..Roms are illegal and so don't get caught blah blah blah or else blah blah blah. Reviews and opinions are my own so don't argue with me unless you can prove other wise why this game sucks and 100% of the time you are wrong because one your either new school gamer and don't know a good game when you see it or two, well their is no two so HA!!. All slogans, trademarks and names excluded the games I review are copyrighted to me blah blah and blah. 2007 SM Old School Legend.

This post has been edited by Saint_Michael: May 14 2007, 12:38 PM