If you still covet your old Michaelangelo lunchbox and know all the words to the theme song, then this game is for you.
The premise of TMNT is simple. Select one of four Ninja Turtles to slash, kick and pummel your way through several foot-clan riddled stages culminating in a boss fight at the end of each level. The single player version of the game offers infinite lives and is not too much of a challenge to breeze through the course of the game under half an hour. The multi-player version, however, presents a tough challenge. Each player is limited to 20 lives, and you will need every one of them if you hope to survive to the end. Like any other hack and slash game of the era, the computer tends to take your lives with relative ease, especially in the later stages. Having more than two players definitely lowers the difficulty as the AI can get confused and focus on your partners leaving you open to attack. If nothing else, this game was MADE to be played co-op. One major problem with co-op is that I have found it difficult to find a game in quick match, and if I ever did manage to connect, it seemed as though half of them were quite laggy. I was quite surprised to see this kind of slowdown while playing a nearly 2 decade old videogame. The graphics are what you would expect from a 1989 arcade game. There are some colorful sprites and interesting animations, but the game starts to definitely feel a tad repetitive after a short while. The level variety helps keep things interesting, but the game is so short that after several replays the stages lose their charm. The audio keeps the same samples from the old game, which will likely force a few smirks to those of us who poured quarters into TMNT back in “the day”. So what’s the verdict? Is this worth the 400 Microsoft points it costs to download? I would say categorically yes, assuming you were once a fan of the old arcade game. For the cost of a Big Mac, fries and a soda you can relive the glory days of your youth bashing the Foot Clan and slicing up Shredder. If you are new to the world of TMNT or were indifferent to them back in their heyday, you might be better off saving your lunch money. It might not be worth SHELLing out the cash . . .