Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 1989 Arcade Game - XBLA (Review)

I was born in 1988, so around the time I was 5 I was unable to enjoy most of the craze that surrounded the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles outside of the classic cartoon. The biggest thing I missed out on was the 1989 arcade game. When it comes to Ninja Turtles nostalgia, nothing seems to top this particular game (apart from a another notable turtles video game) and that seems to have been part of the driving force behind this game's release on the X-Box live arcade back in 07 (in addition to being a tie-in with the TMNT movie that was out at the time.). Playing through it I found the game to okay, but mostly a clear sign that the beat em up genre hasn't aged very well...at all.

The game sends you through about 6 or 7 levels fighting hordes of enemies until you fight a boss and there are a lot of enemy hordes to deal with before the game is over. As an arcade title, the game was designed to basically suck quarters out of player's pockets and that was done by making the enemies cheap bastards. Enemy after enemy will give you a hard time, from pesky Foot Soldier gunners to robots that roll all over the screen. No matter how much you try dodge their attacks, you'll get hit...a lot. As you walk up to one and start beating the snot out of him, he'll suddenly, out of nowhere, land a lucky punch to your face, knocking you to the floor, in front of another enemy that beats you down before you even get up. And that's the main problem when playing this game: there's no small delay time when you get knocked down which means that any enemy near you when you try to regain yourself will easily attack you again, knocking you into the path of another enemy. Bosses have no real attack pattern and can break any combo you launch. This is only gets more annoying as you near the end, making the game a test of patience than a test of skill.

Playing the game in co-op is a fairly different experience. Not only does the game become pretty fun, it's also less frustrating than a single player game. This is mostly because every enemy on screen isn't attacking you at the same time, which gives you some breathing room. Not a lot of breathing room but its still an improvement over single player mode. Overall, I'd say this is a terrible single player game, but a pretty enjoyable multiplayer title. It's a pretty good example of nostalgia being a double edge sword.