Totally Tubular

When I heard that the Konami lineup included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™ , I had visions of cartoon goodness playing through my head. Those pizza-chomping adolescents with their martial arts and way-goofy attitudes. Leonardo, the fearless leader with his katanas. Donatello with his bo-staff. Michelangelo, slinging his nunchaku. And, of course, Raphael, the bad boy with the sai swords and a cynical outlook. From comics to video games, I was a Turtle-holic.

If you gotta have one, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seems like a pretty safe guilty pleasure. The 5-foot tall, 180-pound turtles, running around on the streets of New York, are so over-the-top, you can’t help but love them. Dressed in trappings from some Saturday-morning Fu-flick and pulling off martial art moves that unshelled vertebrates should fear, the turtles are the heroes who stand up to Shredder and his ninja-trained street criminals, the Foot.

And none of this ever makes the evening news. Weird.

Of course, that’s what made us Turtle fanatics. So Konami didn’t spend a great deal of time telling us about our favorite guys in green. Instead, as with any good fighting-adventure game, you can jump right into the fray. The buttons are fairly intuitive. Jump, Major Attack, Minor Attack, and Shoot (Hey! What’s a martial arts game without throwing stars?). Left trigger is a quick dashing move. Right trigger cycles through your throwing weapons.

The cel-shaded look goes a long way to support the comic book feel of the Turtles in action. And then there are the graphics and cut scenes. Whenever something blows up (and you get that a lot, I promise), there is a nifty little “Ka-Boom” written into the explosion just like you might see on the page of a comic book. The same holds true for throwing shuriken around.

Each of our four heroes has his own fighting style (to go along with his weapon, duh!) and combo moves. Besides a very cool and realistic (did I just say that?) way to portray a young martial arts turtle, this helps you tell your turtle apart from a friend’s. In a scrolling-track fighting adventure, that can be pretty important, especially when you plug in and play all four turtles on one screen.

It’s button-mashing at its finest when you have three friends over for a marathon Turtle-fest and Foot-bashing frenzy. Unlock special moves and special effects. Fight through the Story mode or multiplayer challenges. Watch for the pizza and burger power-ups along the way, and never get caught with your shell down.

With Splinter, Casey Jones, and April O’Neil rounding out the supporting cast, you know you’re in for some classic Turtle goodness. Konami knows what we like, and its presentation ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hits right down the center. So grab your favorite weapon, scarf some pizza, and get ready to hit the mean streets in search of the Foot. You know you want to. Remember: guilty pleasure. It’s okay; I won’t tell.

It’s one shell of a good time.

By Conner Rhys