NBrid

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

No summary available.

Written by: DarkWadeX

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when most people hear this name they remember
the great, albeit a little corny, cartoon from the late 80's. Few actually
know the significance of the Turtles in the gaming world. This is a little
history lesson on just how important.

Back in 1984 Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the TMNT universe
which began as a dark, violent comic. It soon became a cult phenomenon
and spurned a VERY toned down cartoon. It was only a matter of time that
a game would be made. So in 1988 one of the greatest biding wars in gaming
history commenced. In the end Konami snagged the rights.

Konami, an established company with classics like Castlevania and Contra
under their belts, decided to make an arcade TMNT game first. What they
created was a legendary game. Released in 1989, TMNT was a behemoth success.
Within months it would become the highest grossing arcade of all time.
So after that success, Konami decided to bring the TMNT to the NES, and
they created, in my humble opinion, the HARDEST game of all time. Unlike
the fairly simple arcade game, the NES Turtles game was a complicated
and incredibly challenging game.

The game sold very well, but for the most part it rode on the TMNT name,
So Konami learned from their mistakes, and made TMNT 2 a port of the arcade
game. This game was far more successful due mainly to the fact it followed
Konami's golden formula: make the game simple, but give it enough of a
challenge to make people come back. Cuz lets face it, the average person
won't play a game if they can't win at it.

With the TMNT arcade still kickin' ass, Konami decided to make a 3rd
TMNT game in 1991. TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project was VERY much like TMNT
2, but with deeper gameplay - well as far as you can expect from the genre.

Well after part 3, NES went the way of the dinosaurs, and SNES was born.
At this point Konami had grown as a company, no longer living off the
TMNT license like they were in 1989. But they decided that since TMNT
2 was such a massive success, maybe they could catch lightning twice and
so they created TMNT 4 Turtles in Time. This arcade didn't exactly come
up to the level that the original arcade did, even though it was a great
success. It was eventually ported to SNES, and sold greatly just as every
TMNT game had.

It was at this time you could see exactly what a great impact the TMNT
series had. It revitalized the arcade industry, meaning all you little
Tekken brats better bow down to the TMNT. And of course the TMNT put Konami
on the map - meaning if it wasn't for the TMNT there would be NO MGS 2
demo, and I know how much that scared you... heh.

So I hope that my little story has helped you all to understand what
an impact a bunch of 6 foot tall talkin' turtles can have. Peace.