With a really popular cartoon, it didn't take much to forsee their introduction into the gaming world. The turtles were perfect for a fighting action game, as their martial arts was their speciality. Although, other popular 80s cartoons may have not received the same treatment of numerous titles getting shifted out to arcade & home consoles, the turtles' peak came with good timing at a perfect period: the late 80s and early nineties. This was an era when graphics were getting better(and not simple dots on a screen), home consoles like the Super Nintendo(SNES), Sega Genesis and the Gameboy made the computer games industry mainstream for real and scrolling beat-em-up games were all the rage, especially in the arcades, there was loads of them.
The main layout of most of these games was to pick either of the 4 turtles, with their specific weapons and guide them through the streets, sewer, cave & Technodrome levels full of on-coming Foot soldiers(who played a bigger part in the games than they ever did in the cartoons) and not always in the traditional purple, but in different colours to represent different skills or weapons, and other enemies like robotic unicycles from the cartoon. By the end of a level, a boss appears and this can turn out to be minor villains(Metalhead, Leatherhead) or major villains(Bebop & Rocksteady), and this nearly always leads down to a finale with Shredder and Krang. Some turtles were easier to play than others but there usually wasn't much difference in controlling them and they take the same paths in the game.
The turtles have made transitions to other gaming genre's: Platform (C64 & Nintendo(NES) consoles) and beat-em-ups(TMNT Tournament Fighters) like "Street Fighter 2". Not much of a jump for TMNT, as it still typifies their diet of action-martial arts-jumping activities.
One of the most exciting things for most people, about these games, is that of the multiplayer function. Where you and 3 friends could play all 4 turtles at once, at the arcades. But that was available in only a few games. TMNT games of the past are still some of the most talked-about titles of their time and that shows there was good quality to go with these games, but not all.
When the new TMNT cartoon came out in 2003, it had been nearly a decade since the last turtles game came out. That serious drought came to an end when "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"(no sub-heading) was released for a new generation on PS2, Nintendo Gamecube, XBox & PC with much fanfare. The game format was very much like the 2D arcade game but with 3D visuals. A 2nd game has been released called TMNT 2: Battle Nexus. Also, a 3rd TMNT game is on the plans. So a new family of TMNT games has been brandished to the world. So how good are these games? Does the new match up with the old?
The games will be rated out of 5 but it won't be just an overall rating. Graphics, music, sound, gameplay & longevity will be given their own ratings and an average rating for the whole game.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Computer Game Reviews
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(Arcade)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(Playstation 2)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Gameboy)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Back from the Sewers (Gameboy)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Radical Rescue (Gameboy)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist(Sega Genesis)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time(SNES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters(SNES)
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