Nickelodeon acquires TMNT

While looking for news, I came across an article concerning two things I never thought would go together. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Nickelodeon.

I kid you not, Nickelodeon plans to make a CG animated series of TMNT, and have even provided a premiere year of 2012. I loved Nickelodeon as a kid, but the lineup they have today is quite pathetic compared with the 90's. Sure there are some bright spots like Avatar: the Last Airbender, but most shows have dumbed down and former fans like me see how lost Nickelodeon is. Want a perfect example of why I think this way? watch any of the live action shows and you'll probably be as frustrated as I am how bad they are and how many there are.

Although, acquiring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that is just something I would never expect. Is it a bad thing? not necessarily, because it can't be worse than how 4KIDS handled it. They ruin pretty much EVERYTHING they touch, so in a way it is an improvement. Can Nickelodeon, a chunk of my life when I was growing up, make TMNT as good as it should be like the last movie. The 2007 film surprised me, and I liked it. Let's hope Nickelodeon doesn't mess this up, they talk about the comedy aspect when explaining their buying of the franchise rights. That's okay because the movie had its shares of laughs too, but let's hope they don't milk the franchise and bring a good show to their network. I say this because today they don't really put effort to make shows as good as they used to, or at least allow some creativity, lets hope that changes.

Live action TMNT news that hurts

I happened to like the 2007 TMNT movie, it was good fun to watch and took a more serious and dark tone than the previous films. The thing is, when they announced they were going to live action, I was okay with that more than others were since the turtles would be CGI. I'm very interested to see how they are designed, but until right now I have been excited for this movie until I saw this article.

I was interested to see if I could go audition for the movie, but knew i'd need martial skills that I don't have :P. Problem is, something in this article has me crying slightly and screaming in protest as a TMNT fan.

Mirage Studios, 4Kids Entertainment and TMNT Productions will select the best candidates to join the Turtles' enemies, the Foot Clan.

Mirage Studios, 4Kids Entertainment and TMNT Productions

Mirage Studios, 4Kids Entertainment

4Kids Entertainment

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

OMG, lets see, 4Kids entertainment involvement in properties. Pokemon movie dubs, Sonic X dubs (casting dan green who did yami yugi in yugioh for knuckles, what the f*ck!), Yugioh. Oh my god 4Kids does stupid things, and they're helping with casting?! AHHH god.

Let's hope Peter Laird puts his foot down at some of 4Kids ideas, oh i'm looking forward to this movie but man this is bad news for me.

Geeksquisite Gaming Diary 6/11/09: TMNT

Ed dissects TMNT for it's flaws.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES Review

This game is a funny one to review with all the odd things I find about it, first of all take a look at the cartridge picture of my copy. Notice anything wrong with the cartridge art? um they are all Raphael because they all wear a red bandanna. Now I might not be the first one to notice this, but it's pretty funny. Talk about Stunt Doubles :P BUT WAIT, I read that before the TV series this was indeed the case that they all wore red, so apparently the game followed the original comics. Not the series that changed that to let viewers distinguish the characters. 

Another thing about this game is the back of it indicates it was made in 1985, OLD yes but yet when I see the copyright it says 1989. Could the cartridge date indicate the start of the NES library, I checked and yes alot of them say 1985 but there is no way they all came out in 1985. I know Robocop didn't. 

Now to the Gameplay, the control is okay. But when it comes to jumping sometimes it takes a few tries to jump somewhere. A lot of people have criticized the game including the Angry Video Game Nerd for the game being complicated when you have to get somewhere and the constantly respawning enemies. Well in fairness to others BOTH those issues don't seem as big to me, sure its trial and error to beat this game. But you get checkpoints in the game when all your turtles die, and respawning enemies as well as the problems with reaching areas isn't that big of a deal. If you really want it to be easier than that, then it isn't challenging which leads to it being not fun. 

Although to be critical I do think Raphael is the WORST choice of the turtles to use, you have to get really close to enemies and most of the time I got hit. He is pretty useless so I use him to defuse the bombs underwater. I think it is ridiculous that the enemies respawn when you go back to an area to get out of the level, and yet the powerup pizzas aren't there. But hey i'm willing to believe Ultra wanted to challenge gamers. The design of where you have to go as said before is kinda annoying, you can't control HOW MUCH you jump so you have to move the character at the right moment to get somewhere. Whether it be for a power up you can skip or a door you need to go through, you go into buildings and sewers but the streets..no. At first you think you have to walk through the streets but really your supposed to just do it and find another sewer hole ASAP. Buildings above ground have no purpose gameplay wise, so if your health is always good, skip some of them. Some of these regular enemies become bosses where you have to beat them, that makes no sense. It's not a unique challenge and it accomplishes nothing because there are unique bosses. 

Overall this game is a classic, challenging game I am told by T.J. it might be remade although he isn't sure. I was enjoying this game more than I should have been by reviews by others, but I guess i'm just easier to please. 

I give it a 3 out of 5