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Just when you thought you'd seen the last of those Turtles, up they pop again to fight crime once more on the NES. The Shredder, being a mite miffed at the foursome's previous success in stopping his plans for global domination, has enlisted plenty of help for his new escapade of terror. His known allies include regiments of Foot robots, scientist pal Baxter Stockman, evil alien Krang and his drooling mutant bodyguards Bebop and Rocksteady.

To achieve his ends more easily, the spiky one has hatched a series of hideous plots designed to lure the Turtles into a variety of deadly traps. The bait for these traps are the amphibian martial artists' best pals who are kidnapped without a moment's warning, causing the Turtles to rush headlong into danger and almost certain death.

TMNT 2 is a conversion of the hugely successful Konami coin-op of 1990. All the levels and baddies of the original are here, along with a few new ones never seen before! You control any of the four turtles who leap around the screen and duff the enemy over with their individual weapons. At the end of each level, an especially hard challenger awaits, such as Bebop, Krang or even the Shredder himself!

In the words of the song, they're the world's most fearsome fighting team and that's not surprising considering the sort of ninja-related hardware they cart around. Leonardo is a bit bippy with his twin Katanas, which are quite slow but have reasonable range and power. Donatello's bo staff does little damage but makes up for this with its superior reach and speed of use. Michelangelo wields his sort range, high power nunchuka with quite some speed, whilst Raphael's much maligned Sai knives combine a fast fire rate with hefty damage, sacrificing a greal deal of range for the privilege.

The coin-op original of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles allowed up to four players to participate at any one time. Sadly, for some reason Turtles II is not Four Score compatible, so a full complement of reptilian assassins are not available simultaneously.

Still, there is a two player option, so you and a friend can combat evil in memory of the pair who had to stay at home.

The Shredder is certainly hedging his bets when it comes to his Turtle-destroying antics. Not only has he built legions of Foot robots to dispatch his arch-enemies, but he's also set a series of cunning traps.

Should you stray too close to certain staircases, a giant steel ball plummets down to squish you. Watch out for some of the billboards on level two where warriors concealed behind them have a habit of dropping onto you, and beware of manhole covers being whipped out from under your feet too!

Everyone knows about the mutants' lust for the foodstuff they call pizza. With this in mind, the popular fast food chain Pizza Hut have sponsored the game! Every background has a veritable glut of Pizza Hut posters and ads to encourage games players to stop playing games and start eating mountains of yummy dough-based take-away pub.

When you first play it, TMNT 2 looks pretty good: the graphics, sound and gameplay are all fairly true to the arcade game. But play it longer and two major weaknesses are exposed.

Firstly, the game suffers from a low difficulty level and completing it takes very little practice, particularly for anyone who's played the arcade game at all.

And secondly, there's not much in the way of variety. The beat-'em-up action is fun at first, but since it hardly changes from level to level it all becomes rather predictable.

The two-player action adds a bit more fun, but even that gets dull after a while. To be honest, unless you're a complete Turtles nut, you'd be better off buying a more challenging and varied beat-'em-up like Ninja Gaiden or Kabuki.

Although it was simplistic and unoriginal, the Turtles game was quite a laugh in the arcades. Still, chucking a few quid into the coin-op and paying £40.00 for the cart are two different things.

TMNT 2 isn't a bad game - the graphics are pretty good and the action is quite enjoyable, but even taking the new levels into account, there just isn't enough game for your money. The whole thing gets a little repetitive after a few sessions and it's not very difficult to beat either.

It's a close enough conversion if you're a huge fan of the arcade machine, but most people would be better off putting the occasional twenty pence into the local arcade machine.

Presentation 78%
Choice of turtles and presentation screens aplenty.

Graphics 79%
The sprites lack definition, but they're quite large and feature nice animation.

Sound 74%
A rendition of the cartoon theme tune plays throughout and there are suitable effects to accompany events.

Playability 67%
Responsive controls and straightforward beat-'em-up action makes this easy to get into...

Lastability 62%
...but the low difficulty level and lack of variety result in the game becoming prematurely dull.

Overall 64%
An entertaining game - for a while. There just isn't enough to it to sustain interest for long.