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" First Released: Arcade (1989) Now Available On: N/A In hindsight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has to be one of the most bizarre concepts in the history of popular culture. Four anthropomorphic reptiles trained in martial arts by a giant rat to fight crime in New York City shouldn&amp;#039;t have worked as a basis for a successful property, but for some reason, it did. The Ninja Turtles made their debut in a 1984 comic book series created for Mirage Studios by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The original comics were dark, gritty and surprisingly good, but it wasn&amp;#039;t long before extensive licensing agreements moulded the Ninja Turtles brand into something more family-friendly.  Action figures, merchandise, a phenomenally popular television series, live action movies and a string of video games were released in the ensuing years. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael became a dominant force in the entertainment industry, and in 1989 their influence spread to the arcades.  Konami&amp;#039;s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coin-op game was everything a fan could have hoped for. It was a side-scrolling beat &amp;#039;em up based on the Double Dragon blueprint, and one of the best examples of faithful license usage ever seen. The game was distributed to arcades in both two and four-player variants. It drew inspiration from the TV show which began airing two years earlier, borrowing many of its characters. Taking control of one of the four turtles, players had to battle their way through the Foot Clan&amp;#039;s legions to rescue April O&amp;#039;Neil and Splinter from the clutches of Shredder.  Gameplay was as simplistic as any other late &amp;#039;80s brawler. A standard arcade stick moved your turtle, and there were buttons for jump and attack, which took quite a battering throughout. It was also possible to perform a handful of special moves. Most of the enemies encountered were Shredder&amp;#039;s robotic foot soldiers, which could be flung overhead or driven into walls. The majority of the time, the player would pull off these moves unwittingly amid the frantic button-bashing. Hitting jump and attack delivered a special move unique to each turtle at the expense of some of your health, a cheap trick developers included all too often back then.  The Ninja Turtles arcade game was a smash hit because it didn&amp;#039;t deviate from its source material. Memorable villains from the TV series were used to maximum effect. Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter Stockman and Krang were among the memorable bosses you encounter between scene one&amp;#039;s burning building and the final showdown in the Technodrome.  The visual design captured the look and feel of the show, and the digitised speech and original theme tune were equally authentic. It was one of those arcade titles you couldn&amp;#039;t resist pumping more money into when the continue screen flashed up, until you were fresh out of pocket change. Ninja Turtles was ported to several home platforms following its arcade debut. It arrived on the NES in 1990 under the title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game to distinguish it from Konami&amp;#039;s earlier Turtles effort on the system, a 2D platformer released the previous year. The console edition featured numerous changes. There was a brand new level, the snowfield, and additional boss characters Tora and Shogun, created exclusively for the game. The mutated fly incarnation of Baxter Stockman even showed up for a cameo. The NES port was one of the first console titles to feature product placement. Pizza Hunt logos cropped up throughout, and coupons for the restaurant came inside the game&amp;#039;s manual.  The following year, Image Works and Probe Software brought the game to home computers. It was released for ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, PC and Commodore 64, but given that arcade technology was some way ahead back then, these versions were considered inferior ports. Konami included the game as a bonus feature in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Battle Nexus, released for GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC in 2004. Three years later, it appeared on Xbox Live for a limited time. The NES version was announced for the Wii&amp;#039;s Virtual Console service some years back, before being quietly cancelled. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles proved, if nothing else, that Konami could deliver a licensed beat &amp;#039;em up better than anyone. Many fans consider the game&amp;#039;s sequel Turtles in Time to be superior. While there&amp;#039;s certainly a case to argue that this is true, the original coin-op release will always be of greater historic significance because it came along first. If you find one of these cabinets in working order, it&amp;#039;s still worth banging in a few coins for old time&amp;#039;s sake. &amp;gt; Retro Corner: X-Men Do you have any fond memories of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Write a comment in the space below.      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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