TimeWasters  highlights many of the excellent, free Web-based/lightweight downloadable titles that you can dive into within the space of a lunch break. This week, Chris Gampat explores Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Damage.

Cowabunga! Ubisoft’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Damage is a free flash game that will keep Turtles fanboys satisfied and time wasters constantly coming back to finish the side-scroller despite how tough it can be at times. Designed to promote the new game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash Up (PlayStation 2, Wii) fighter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Damage is a fun and engaging title that includes many familiar faces that have been series staples since the late ’80s.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Damage, April is kidnapped while trying to give the turtles a tip on some street shenanigans. The Turtles  then spring into action to save the helpless journalist. The fighting takes them from the streets of NYC, then to rooftops, warehouses and factories. Along the way you’ll encounter the Foot Soldiers, Mousers, The Hun, Shredder and some of the more seen characters.

You only get to control one of four characters: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, or Raphael. Leo and Don have a longer range melee attack, while Mike and Raph are short ranged but very powerful. You may find that later levels and bosses may be better faced with Leonardo and Donatello while the earlier levels are easily cleared out by Raphael and Michelangelo.

You’re required to select a secondary character that unleashes special attacks/health boosts when you collect enough ooze icons to power said bonuses. You’ll have the assistance of Pizza Boy, Splinter, Casey Jones, and other Turtles, but it would’ve been nice to play as Casey Jones or Splinter after beating the game.

The controls are very easy to use and worked well using the small keyboard on my MacBook. Your fingers won’t hit the wrong keys because there are only two attack buttons to press (“A” and “S”) and navigation is handled by the arrow keys.  The controls do well for walking, doing double jumps, sliding down walls (which you only get to do much further along in the game) and attacking/shell slamming.

Being a side-scroller, the graphics remind me of a Super NES title. If ported to the iPhone or T-Mobile G1 it would play very well. Fans of the original show will appreciate this and give you a slight sense of nostalgia as compared to what the TMNT franchise has become. The music doesn’t have much range, but this only adds to the feel of the Super NES days where cut scenes are provided that look like online comics and more emphasis was placed on gameplay rather than audio-visual dazzle.

Overall, the game is very fun, but also can be frustrating in an old school way. You need to time jumps perfectly, defeat enemies with precise combos, and dissect boss patterns.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Damage may be nothing like the game it’s promoting, but it will at least draw in fans of the original animated series.