MW: Welcome once again to this week's Game Freaks. First off, I'd like to apologize to all of our loyal readers for our lack of column in the last issue. I won't lie to you all: Frankly, we forgot to do it before Spring Break. Anyway, getting down to business, we're going to review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 this week... so old skool, so good. With the recent resurgence of the TMNT on the video-game, cartoon, and comic-book scenes, we thought this would be an appropriate tribute to the world's favorite scaly green heroes.

MB: There are lots of strange trends I remember from when I was a kid. Some things I can only look back on and shake my head. Things like tennis shoes with lights in the heel and the enormous popularity of kid rappers like Kris Kross come to mind. However, some trends only get cooler over time, and for me, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are one of these things.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching the TMNT cartoon and playing with the action figures. In fact, my love of TMNT actually predates my love of video games, which is a rare thing indeed. Thus, when I first got my NES, the TMNT games were among the first rented. I was a bit disappointed in the first installment, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game was pure hack-and-slash bliss.

And indeed, hack-and-slash is the easiest way to describe the gameplay. There are no complex controls, combo attacks, or any of the other things that have been added to the hack-and-slash genre since the creation of this game. The A button makes your turtle jump, and the B button makes him attack--end of story.

While this simple mechanic leads to the game being very enjoyable the very first time you play it, it limits the replay value of the game to a severe degree. Once you've played through the first couple levels, you've seen more or less everything the game has to offer. Luckily, the designers of the game were aware of this fact, and thus made the game relatively short, so that it could be successfully beaten before one was bored.

The designers of this game also kept the plot relatively simple. It's the formula that's appeared in countless episodes: April O'Neill gets kidnapped by Shredder and the Foot Clan, and the turtles go to save her. Nothing groundbreaking, but what do you expect? It's a video game based on a cartoon!

For the NES, the graphics are fairly impressive. The turtles and their enemies look far closer to how they looked on the TV series than in the first game. The backgrounds are well done, with some impressive effects, like the rolling metal balls that try to flatten your turtle in the first level. They appeared to be very shiny and metallic, truly an impressive feat on an 8-bit system. (Also in the first level, look for the random Pizza Hut advertisements on the walls. It makes me laugh every time I see them to this day.)

Overall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game is a solid side-scrolling action title, still fun to play to this day. However, I feel that it doesn't hold up as well as other similar NES titles such as the Double Dragon and Ninja Gaiden series. But, if you're as big into childhood nostalgia as I am, this game is definitely worth playing.

Rating: 7.5/10

MW: I have a slightly different take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise than my colleague does. It's interesting to me how vastly divergent the '80s wave TMNT merchandising was from the actual pater familias, the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The cartoon series reflected little of the intensity or plot elements of the comics, a sad situation which appears at first glance to have been remedied by the new cartoon series on FOX. It also added and subtracted personality traits from the main characters, detracting from the story.

That being said, I still look fondly upon the TMNT II video game for the NES. Although it chooses to follow the plot of the '80s series rather than the more interesting comics, it remains an engaging, fun video game that just so happens to be harder than hell to beat in single-player mode. Now, when I say harder than hell, let me quantify that by also saying that NOTHING is harder than the original TMNT game for the NES, which will cause you to have a nervous breakdown. Don't touch that thing if you value your sanity.

However, the sequel is still surprisingly difficult. The gameplay itself is easy, in the manner of all hack-n'-slash genre games, but there are certain levels in the game that are just plain hard without the aid of another player. The button-mashing required to kill some of the later bosses without getting massacred is very intense, with a lot of jumping into the air in an attempt to land a jump-kick between shots from laser guns and huge thrown objects.

The plot of the game... wait, there is no plot. This is a mark against the game coming from the English major, frankly. This game arose, at its heart, from an incredibly story-intensive comic book series and a decently plot-driven cartoon show. However, the game itself has an incredibly formulaic story: Turtle meets girl, evil dude with shiny armor kidnaps girl, turtle beats up inordinate amount of ninja to rescue girl, girl is mildly impressed but expects the whole thing to happen again in the sequel (it does). If you were expecting a plot even on the level of Ninja Gaiden, you'll be disappointed. If you're a heavy-duty role-playing gamer, big into Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger on a regular basis, this game is not your baby, unless the joy of smashing Foot Soldiers is reward in and of itself (it often is).

Graphically, the game is nearly identical to the cartoon, just in 8-bit. The Turtles look just like they do in the show, the Foot Soldiers explode in the same satisfying manner, and the Shredder still needs a fashion consultant. For being a purely faithful translation of the cartoons, this game gets my kudos—they don't take license with much that the '80s series didn't already take license with.

All in all, this is an excellent addition to the beat-'em-up genre of video games. My only complaint is its distance from the original stories of the TMNT. Otherwise, it's a proud addition to any collection, and is still a great game to sit down with a buddy and beat.

Just don't try to get past the third level alone.

Rating: 7/10