11/20/2023 0 Comments Tmnt pinball![]() ![]() What’s important though is gameplay, right? And that’s where I was most impressed with this little doo-dad. There’s also a fair share of generic “Radical!”s, “Pizza time!”s, and of course “Cowabunga!”s as well as classic pinball machine sounds. Unfortunately, the original TMNT theme is a licensing nightmare, so instead we get a looping song that vaguely reminds you of it. The “scorecard” on the top LCD screen mimics the original the best it can with the space provided. And with this simplified redesign…it’s a benefit for the gameplay. Is that a bad thing? Well from a presentation aspect… yes …it doesn’t look like that same game now…but the point of this is to play it. So this aspect of the game is completely simplified and redesigned. And you really can’t cram that down and present it on a 2 inch LCD screen without confusion. Anyone who’s played some classic pinball know there’s a lot going on design wise. The top glass features the original epic TMNT artwork (complete with infamous “April cleavage”,kids) and even has that classic “backlit” effect which adds to the retro authenticity. You power it on (there’s a switch on the back powered by 3 included AAA batteries) and the screens are bright and alluring. The pinball playfield and topscreen are little LCD screens. And with this thing being so tiny, it’s pretty impressive. It’s recycled images of the ‘87 cartoon Turtles mimicking the original machine the best they could. ![]() The sticker artwork isn’t the original Data East art. Going back and studying images of that original Data East TMNT machine online, sure, there are differences. It came in a nice window box packaging and, even though I knew the measurements, in person I realized just how dang small it was 1.75(L) x 4.25(H) x 3.5(W). Now I see it popping up on various websites for around the same price. ![]() Nowadays it’s mostly referenced for April O’Neil given’ it up in that top glass art, but I suppose the Turtles needed to keep the attention of teenagers somehow. This game was a huge reason I got into pinball as a kid. You had to save April and Splinter, there were sewer bonuses, real digitized sounds of voices and the classic cartoon theme, and the playfield was just scattered with classic TMNT action figures. It was a bodacious looking machine with radical artwork that mixed elements of the 1990 film and ‘87 Fred Wolf cartoon. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball was developed by Data East and released in June 1991. Lucky you! And here are my thoughts… First… THE SOURCE And for $20…why not take the dive? So I did. One of these things is not like the other, right? It’s like having the Superbowl, World Series, and Wrestlemania in the same package. A line of fully functional miniatures of “your favorite arcade games, from the summer boardwalk to the after-school mall video arcade.” So far this series consists of 3 handheld games: Whack-a-mole, Skeeball, and TMNT Pinball. Nostalgia is a money maker and “retro gaming” is a huge part of that. But it was in my aimless internet journeys that I came across a more affordable (and insanely smaller) arcade classic: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pinball. And as someone who dumped countless quarters into those machines as a kid, that modern reality is mind bending. Sadly, the arcade business has practically dried up…yet nowadays we can just purchase our own arcade cabinets such as the TMNT/Turtles in Time classics at your local Walmart. But the black sheep in the TMNT arcade lineup was definitely a classic for us pinball wizards: Data East’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball machine. In that aspect our Heroes in a Halfshell are fondly remembered for their fantastic side scrolling multiplayer beat-em up classics: TMNT and Turtles in Time. And if you found yourself in your local arcade, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were probably present as well. If you grew up during the height of Turtle-Mania, that means you grew up in an era where arcades were a popular and prevalent business.
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