Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Cowabunga! When four ninja turtles rode into gaming arcades in 1989, one of the most successful licensed brawlers of all time was set in motion. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Konami let Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael beat their way through hordes of the Foot Clan – and kids and adults alike lined up to try it out.

Mechanically it's a textbook arcade beat 'em up: four players at once, each turtle with its own weapon and slightly different reach and power. You advance through the streets of New York, the sewers and Shredder's fortress, beating up Foot ninjas, dodging and using the jump-attack as your basic tactic. The simplicity of the controls and instant readability make the game an ideal ticket into the genre.

Konami held the license at a time when turtle mania was cresting thanks to the animated series, and the game milks it at full throttle – colorful graphics, faithful characters, bosses like Bebop, Rocksteady or Shredder himself. The visual style hits the tone of the cartoon series exactly, so that fans felt like they were inside an episode.

Culturally it was one of the titles that defined the shape of licensed arcade games of the late 1980s, and proof of how perfectly a quartet of heroes fits into a cooperative four-player brawler. The game later saw home conversions and later re-releases, thanks to which it lives on even outside dusty arcades.

Like an arcade machine of its era, this one too is built to swallow coins, but it's precisely playing together as a whole group that makes it an unforgettable experience full of shouting and laughter.

Why play: A cult turtle brawler that combined a phenomenon of the 1980s with perfect cooperation – the turtles, pizza and the Foot Clan in top form.