TMNT 1989 Xbox Live Arcade Review

Holy nostalgia Batman!

As you probably know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game has been released on the XBox Live Arcade. While there aren’t any graphical upgrades, the game is fun all the same:

The Great Stuff

• The game is just as fun as you remember it and you don’t really even notice all the button mashing involved
• Online play really makes this game. You actually feel like you’re better off if you have 4 people (turtles) playing, regardless of how many more enemies spawn on the screen
• That oh-so-dramatic moment of deciding which turtle to choose… do you go for Donatello’s long-range, slow attacks with his Bo or for Raphael’s short-range, quick attacks with his Sais?
• It’s only 5 bucks!

The Lame Stuff

• Just like any online game, you need a good ping rate with those you’re playing with to make the game playable. However, TMNT is completely unbearable if you’re playing with someone with a “red” ping rate
• The game is HARD! I don’t remember it being this hard, but  the foot soldiers have been in combat training or something. And Bebop is a BEAST! It’s hard to get in a shot on him without catching a Mike Tyson Uppercut in return
• “Pizza dude’s got 30 seconds!” - There’s totally not enough pizzas laying around to refresh your energy. But I guess I should be more concerned about dodging the shanks the foot soldiers throw to conserve lives (which you only get 20 of)
• No Quarter Slot on the XBox 360 to continue once you use all your lives

Bags and I linked up for some online play last night and it was a load of fun. All in all, the game is pretty challenging and the achievement points are definitely no give-away. One of the hardest achievements is scoring 250 points in an Xbox Live Co-op game. You get points for killing each baddie. There’s definitely some tradeoff in this.. if you play with more people, you’ll get further in the game, but obviously there’s less kills to go around. If you play with only 1 person, it’ll be hard to get further in the game so you will get less kills.

Anyway, please go pick this up if you haven’t already. It’s available on the Xbox Live Marketplace under Demos and Downloads.