Growing up I was a massive fan of the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, god knows why they changed the name because it was fine as it was. The cartoon show used to be brilliant and the films that spawned from them were great as well. One of my favourite things about them though was an arcade game originally released in 1989; it was the same side-scrolling bash em up style as Street Fighter except that there were four joysticks to allow you and three friends to play together as the whole turtle gang. Now I wasn’t born until 1990 but luckily I used to occasionally go down to New Brighton, a small seaside town on the opposite side of the River Mersey to Liverpool. Now it wasn’t the most fancy of locations but there was a great place called Adventureland, a massive childrens play area that happened to have that very arcade machine in it for many years after its release, and best of all it was free to play because you had to pay entry to get in there. Now this is the first turtles game I have played since then and well to say being disappointed is an understatement.
The game itself takes place in between seasons two and three of the Nickelodeon TV show that seems to be quite popular amongst todays young people, although it is not as good, compared to the original series I watched with the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles taking on the likes of Emperor Krang. Sadly though where as there may be a strong story in the Nickelodeon show that keeps audiences watching, that doesn’t translate to the game very well at all. There is a basic plot which sees you travelling around the city trying to prevent a disastrous weapon falling into the wrong hands, you now your typical good versus evil storyline. Unfortunately because of the way the story unfolds in the game by characters such as April O’Neil and Casey Jones linking sections of the story together it just ruins the game because the character acting seems so poor. I mean it seriously leaves you feeling like the characters have no soul and whereas the arcade game released in the 80s had you hooked and feeling like you really were one of the four heroes, this title falls very short of that and can only be described as poor at best.
Another area that really lets the game down as well is the fact that on the last game I played you could play with all four turtles at the same time, but now you play as one at a time switching between characters at the push of a button. Now many games today are like the classic that will always have a place in my heart where you can play as a team; you can do it on Halo, Borderlands and Destiny. So why didn’t Way Forward Technologies go with that in this game? I mean the Turtles are four brothers who work together to fight evil and save the world. The key word there is together, the turtles don’t go it alone all the time because they’re a team, a family, four parts of a well oiled machine which would fall apart if each part didn’t work in tandem with each other much like some of the parts of this game.
If anything I know it has been a long time since the game I am used to but instead of finding a way forward to make a game better they’ve just taken a massive leap backwards by restricting the game and moving away from what TMNT is all about. Don’t get me wrong there is the odd thing that they’ve done right in terms of gameplay. For example as you progress through the game you unlock new abilities that come in handy for unlocking new areas and making it easier to defeat enemies, and the rate at which you earn these upgrades is well paced throughout danger of the ooze. But that is’t enough to make anyone want to play this game really.
Saying that, I do appreciate some of the work that has gone into the graphics and mechanics of the game. Design wise the developers have pretty much created decent 3D models of Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael which all closely resemble their character design from the modern series, and level designs look nice as well with many different layers and routes to take getting you from A to B. As for mechanics the combat system works well as movement runs smoothly and each character has their own style of attacks and movements based on the weapons they use. With the addition of upgraded abilities as well you begin to appreciate the combat system a lot more through the game as you can start stringing together better combos, mixing up both long and short range attacks.
At the end of the day though this game really isn’t worth the money you pay for it if you are a fan of the original turtles like me. It may be more suited to younger children who are fans of the current show but as a game it just lacks any real character and doesn’t stir up emotions like many other games do. Yes the graphics look nice, and mechanically the game is sound except for poor lip syncing when characters talk but that isn’t really enough to say that this is a game that you should go out and buy. It also doesn’t help the game’s case by making it so you can’t have the full team of turtles working together at the same time with a four player co-op mode. I mean they’re a family and families stick together, they don’t hide away while one fights the battles. Who knows maybe it is just me, maybe I am set in my ways and I just want to relive the good old days where the TV show was good and the games were fun, maybe I’m being too critical. Then again maybe I’m right…who am I kidding, of course I am.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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