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Description
[Official Description from cancelled MS-DOS PC video game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Manhattan Missions II: The Revenge (1992) ]
"Last year, the Big Apple needed help in a big way.  The rotten rascals and rogues of the Foot Clan had turned New York’s nightlife into a twilight of terror.  But then you answered the call, together with the four most tubular Heroes in a Half Shell the world had ever seen.  You battled evil mutants, malicious mobsters, wacked robots, and even space alien dinosaurs to bring back peace and pizza.  Sorry to tell you, but you didn’t finish the job.  What, did you really think it would be that easy?
The Shredder is back, and he’s looking up some of your old friends.  That’s how the business of revenge works, after all. As you probably guessed, Old Tin Head isn't alone either. Battle the Foot Clan's baddest bosses to save your Master Splinter and your favorite bodacious babe April O'Neil. You can tackle the game's 12 maddening missions in an order of your choosing, but just remember that the clock is ticking on Shredder's plan to raise the Technodrome, Krang's titanic terrace of terror!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Manhattan Missions II: The Revenge is the newest action game from Konami, exclusively for your PC.  And it’s totally original, combining the thrill of the arcade with innovative strategy and open-world elements sure to captivate PC gamers."

[Information retrieved April 1, 2017]
---End Gag---

I hope this looks familiar to most people or else I'm starting to get old! In the era when Intel's Pentium processors were in their infancy, a PC game posting these kind of specs and gameplay would have been awfully ambitious. Makes one wonder how the game might have played out in the pre-Windows '95 era. I'd be really interested in that promise of non-linear gameplay.

Commemorating April Fools Day 2017, here's my TMNT-themed tribute to Double Dragon II: The Revenge, one of my all-time favorite games on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original DD2 poster is a remarkable piece of art, with a perfect layout that guided one's line-of-sight in a way that communicated visual balance and symmetry. The quality of that cover art is especially surprising considering the Double Dragon series never had a great track record for cover art. I tried to follow the layout structure as closely as I could and that made sense with the characters I chose for stand-ins. Raphael and Casey Jones take the places of Billy and Jimmy Lee and April O'Neil fills in nicely for Marion/Marian/whatever. The villains are mostly just the characters I most wanted to draw. A generic Foot Soldier seemed to capture Abobo's silhouette while Bebop is one of my favorites to put in a comical situation. Leatherhead is there because I don't think I'd previously posted any fan art of his swamp trapper incarnation. I originally hoped to put Baxter Stockman the Fly in the background behind April, but the piece started to get a little too busy and it threw off the symmetry. The Turtle Blimp was a less demanding substitute, and it takes the place of the helicopter in the original piece.

I have played a lot of Double Dragon IV on Steam since it came out, and while I think it's decent, it certainly doesn't capture the magic that made DDII special on the NES. I thought the controls were fine and very forgiving compared to the NES original, but the problem was the pacing. In most areas, the player can just stand in one spot and just about all the enemies charge the player at once. You spam the hurricane or knee kicks for easy takedowns or you get punched around. In that sense, it has more in common with the less highly regarded NES-sequel Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones, a good-looking game, but not one that I get much enjoyment out of playing. If anybody wants to connect for a round of Double Dragon Neon co-op on Steam, let me know and we can probably work something out.

[EDITED April 4 to correct scale on the right hand of Casey Jones.]

Description
[Official Description from cancelled MS-DOS PC video game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Manhattan Missions II: The Revenge (1992) ]
"Last year, the Big Apple needed help in a big way.  The rotten rascals and rogues of the Foot Clan had turned New York’s nightlife into a twilight of terror.  But then you answered the call, together with the four most tubular Heroes in a Half Shell the world had ever seen.  You battled evil mutants, malicious mobsters, wacked robots, and even space alien dinosaurs to bring back peace and pizza.  Sorry to tell you, but you didn’t finish the job.  What, did you really think it would be that easy?
The Shredder is back, and he’s looking up some of your old friends.  That’s how the business of revenge works, after all. As you probably guessed, Old Tin Head isn't alone either. Battle the Foot Clan's baddest bosses to save your Master Splinter and your favorite bodacious babe April O'Neil. You can tackle the game's 12 maddening missions in an order of your choosing, but just remember that the clock is ticking on Shredder's plan to raise the Technodrome, Krang's titanic terrace of terror!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Manhattan Missions II: The Revenge is the newest action game from Konami, exclusively for your PC.  And it’s totally original, combining the thrill of the arcade with innovative strategy and open-world elements sure to captivate PC gamers."

[Information retrieved April 1, 2017]
---End Gag---

I hope this looks familiar to most people or else I'm starting to get old! In the era when Intel's Pentium processors were in their infancy, a PC game posting these kind of specs and gameplay would have been awfully ambitious. Makes one wonder how the game might have played out in the pre-Windows '95 era. I'd be really interested in that promise of non-linear gameplay.

Commemorating April Fools Day 2017, here's my TMNT-themed tribute to Double Dragon II: The Revenge, one of my all-time favorite games on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The original DD2 poster is a remarkable piece of art, with a perfect layout that guided one's line-of-sight in a way that communicated visual balance and symmetry. The quality of that cover art is especially surprising considering the Double Dragon series never had a great track record for cover art. I tried to follow the layout structure as closely as I could and that made sense with the characters I chose for stand-ins. Raphael and Casey Jones take the places of Billy and Jimmy Lee and April O'Neil fills in nicely for Marion/Marian/whatever. The villains are mostly just the characters I most wanted to draw. A generic Foot Soldier seemed to capture Abobo's silhouette while Bebop is one of my favorites to put in a comical situation. Leatherhead is there because I don't think I'd previously posted any fan art of his swamp trapper incarnation. I originally hoped to put Baxter Stockman the Fly in the background behind April, but the piece started to get a little too busy and it threw off the symmetry. The Turtle Blimp was a less demanding substitute, and it takes the place of the helicopter in the original piece.

I have played a lot of Double Dragon IV on Steam since it came out, and while I think it's decent, it certainly doesn't capture the magic that made DDII special on the NES. I thought the controls were fine and very forgiving compared to the NES original, but the problem was the pacing. In most areas, the player can just stand in one spot and just about all the enemies charge the player at once. You spam the hurricane or knee kicks for easy takedowns or you get punched around. In that sense, it has more in common with the less highly regarded NES-sequel Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones, a good-looking game, but not one that I get much enjoyment out of playing. If anybody wants to connect for a round of Double Dragon Neon co-op on Steam, let me know and we can probably work something out.

[EDITED April 4 to correct scale on the right hand of Casey Jones.]