Virtual Console Roundup

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

• Platform: NES
• Wii Points: 500

Ooh, crikey. I once made a lot of people VERY VERY ANGRY when I suggested that, compared to the side-scrollers that preceded it, the "classic" Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade fighting game was a mindless sack of rancid amphibian muck. How they wailed and gnashed their teeth. Don't mess with nostalgia, kids. It's like a razor, and it'll cut you wide open.

So, here are the half-shell heroes once again. Dare I go for the double? Well, this apparently equally beloved home console outing has more going for it than its braindead arcade cousin, but it still hasn't aged all that well.

You start off guiding your turtle from above, like a green Gauntlet clone, and then switch to side-on platforming when you drop into a manhole. At the other end you pop out of another manhole, hopefully closer to your goal. Free-roaming, in a restricted retro kind of way, and with plenty of brainwork required to figure out how to escape the maze-like levels, I can see why it holds a place in the hearts of those who played it as kids, but the rather poor design of the platforming stages ultimately makes it more of a slog than it should be.

6/10

Final Fight

• Platform: SNES
• Wii Points: 800

I held off on reviewing this seminal brawler, mostly because I was trying to spread the wheat amongst the chaff during these lengthy roundups, but also because each week seemed to feature another scrolling fighter thus making coverage of this a repetitive proposition.

As it turns out, leaving it until the end has proven rather useful. In my youth I was an avowed Final Fight fan. After all, what boy could fail to be bowled over by Haggar in all his majestic glory, bare-chested and sporting the kind of bushy 'tache that a humble teen could only dream of?

I remembered it as a larger-than-life experience, full of enormous characters using enormous moves to crush enormous enemies. Playing it again a decade and change later, it's still a lot of fun - but not quite the epoch-making masterpiece I once believed. Most notably, playing it alongside Streets of Rage I realise that I pinned my flag to the wrong mast. For all its bluster, Final Fight is something of a lumbering behemoth alongside SEGA's nimbler offering.

And let's not forget that this is the SNES version we're talking about here, not the arcade original. Playable characters are reduced to just two, so it's goodbye to Cody and tousled blond locks. There's no two-player co-op, and an entire stage has been removed to squeeze it onto the console.

All told, while Final Fight as a series is well worth your time - if only to see how its parallel development with Street Fighter II helped shape the beat-'em-up genre - but you can safely download Streets of Rage (or its equally groovy sequel) rather than this half-baked port.

6/10

Bio-Hazard Battle

• Platform: Megadrive
• Wii Points: 800

Yet another horizontal shooter, few bothered to check out Bio-Hazard Battle when it slapped itself gently against the Megadrive back in 1992, and the only reason to do now is because a) it's a lot cheaper and b) it's a bit weird.

The game asks you to help save a biologically knackered planet by shooting lots of things. To do this, you can choose from four organic "bioships", each offering different speeds and power-ups. One looks like an insect, another a bit fishy. That sort of thing. Enemies are equally squishy and odd, undulating through the sky towards you in a freaky manner. The bass-heavy soundtrack adds to the rather uncomfortable mood, throbbing your speakers in such a way that your bowels give a little quiver as each new boss lumbers into view.

Think of it as David Cronenberg's R-Type and you'll be within spitting distance of understanding what the flipping crikey is going on.

7/10