{"id":180,"date":"2011-09-19T14:28:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T14:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=180"},"modified":"2011-09-19T14:30:47","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T14:30:47","slug":"teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ii-the-arcade-game-nes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the actual TMNTII<\/em> arcade game was much flashier, the NES edition was definitely the superior game with more content.<\/p>\n

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1990 - NES (Ultra)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0The cartridge came with a coupon for free pizza, which didn’t hurt giving this game an edge over its competitors.<\/p>\n

Although I have nothing but great memories gathered from playing this game with friends as a kid, the one I share today is rather embarrassing.\u00a0 Epic, but embarrassing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but I was an avid collector of video game magazines.\u00a0 There was no internet to rely on, so flipping through the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly<\/em> or Nintendo Power<\/em> to get the latest tips and cheats was a common practice.\u00a0 With every month came a new issue, and with every issue came new cheats…\u00a0 it was always something fun to look forward to.<\/p>\n

In the April of ’90 issue of EGM<\/em>, one cheat in particular caught my attention.<\/p>\n

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Well, this is certainly an epic cheat code if I've ever seen one!<\/p><\/div>\n

Simon Belmont (from the Castlevania<\/em> series) would be perfect to fight with!\u00a0 The cheat was complimented by two\u00a0screen shots, one of them showing Belmont lashing his whip at a Foot Soldier.\u00a0 My best friend who lived around the corner owned the game, so with\u00a0the magazine in hand, I rushed over to give the code a try.\u00a0 It seemed like quite a long process, but it would be worth it!<\/p>\n

Well…\u00a0 it was indeed quite the process.\u00a0 For about 30 minutes, we tried to get the code to work as described.\u00a0 We convinced ourselves that, due to the complicated nature of the code, we were messing something up.\u00a0 We gave up, deciding to instead just play the game normally.<\/p>\n

As the years went by, TMNTII<\/em> would inevitably come up in any conversation related to the NES.\u00a0 It was a fantastic game, and it pretty much erased any memory of a somewhat disappointing first title.\u00a0 I would mention this code, and though people wouldn’t remember hearing about it, I was “in the know” because of the magazine.<\/p>\n

Last year, I found the issue in question when digging through old piles of gaming publications.\u00a0 Just for fun, I started flipping through pages, and eventually landed on the familiar code.<\/p>\n

I then read the caption next to the screenshots.<\/p>\n

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Oh my.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0A.P. Rilphuuls?\u00a0 Is he Danish?<\/em><\/p>\n

It then hit me like a ton of bricks.\u00a0 April F***ING Fool’s.<\/em><\/p>\n

For 20 years, I believed it to be an actual cheat for TMNTII<\/em>.\u00a0 I passed it along as\u00a0fact to everyone else who mentioned anything about the game.\u00a0 It’s all quite hilarious, but I do blame the gag working on me\u00a0(oh so well) on a few things;<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 I was still learning how to read in English.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Even if I did know how to properly read in English, I was just way too excited to even care about what the caption said.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 A.P. Rilphuuls<\/em>?\u00a0 Seriously?\u00a0 I still don’t find it that obvious.\u00a0 “Eh-pee Rilfuels” is what I initially though it\u00a0pronounced when I re-read it last year.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 The Fromegem, HA<\/em> is perhaps an error on the editor’s part, or maybe another attempt at spelling something differently to get the same phonetic sound.\u00a0 Had it been Fromegm<\/em>, it could\u00a0have possibly clicked.\u00a0 As it was, I thought perhaps Fromegem<\/em> was some kind of cheese.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 I am the most gullible person on the planet.\u00a0 I’ve been burned over the last couple April 1sts, but for the other 364 days of the year, I can be pretty dense.<\/p>\n

So, there you have it.\u00a0 I’m hoping a current EGM<\/em> editor will see this someday and get a chuckle out of it.<\/p>\n

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