Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (360)

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The 80's are making a comeback. Not only have the Transformers been making a reappearance, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have also been coming back out of the sewers. This year saw the release of a new CGI film of the heroes in a half-shell, and so along comes the obligatory videogame tie-in. This filled us with dread, after the very poor treatment of the license in the medium in recent years.

For this game, however, development was handled by Ubisoft instead of Konami. Considering that Ubisoft developed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, one of our favourite games in recent years, this game now had serious potential. Has the finished product lived up to it?

Right from the start, the game gives off the feeling of being Prince of Persia Lite. Even the way the story is presented is similar; it’s told in a flashback form, with the Turtles recalling the film’s story, where they had to overcome their own family squabbles and stop an army of demons from invading the Earth. While it’s generally pretty faithful, several characters and scenes are omitted or pushed to the sidelines. There aren’t even that many clips from the film used, with the story instead being revealed in a fashion similar to a comic book, which is nice but leaves us with the feeling Ubisoft’s budget couldn’t stretch to including more from the film (a feeling compounded by the fact several voice-overs have been replaced with poor stand-ins).

The graphics look good, with decent-looking characters, nicely-detailed environments and some nice weather and environmental effects. Some of the more interesting techniques come when playing as Raphael’s vigilante alter-ego, Nightwatcher, where the environments are rendered in black-and-white with the odd splash of colour; this is apparently to portray Raph’s less-than-stellar state of mind. A lot of effort has gone into recreating the film’s universe. The only big downside to the graphics is the copious slowdown when a lot is happening on screen, which is particularly unhelpful in fights.

That is another parallel that can be drawn with Prince of Persia; the game’s structure. Most of the game is platforming, as your turtle uses a variety of Prince-style moves, such as wall-running, pole-swinging and a lot of jumping, to navigate along the rooftops of New York, through underground ruins and a hi-tech tower. This is where the game is at its strongest. With a bit of practice, platforming is fast, fluid and generally enjoyable, with some well-constructed environments to work your way through. However, sometimes the controls can be a touch over-sensitive, and may send you running along a wall when all you wanted to do was climb up it, and the camera will sometimes provide very unhelpful views of where you’re supposed to be going. It’s not game-ruining, but serves to remind you that this game isn’t as finely crafted as Prince of Persia was.

When you’re forced into a fight, the flaws with the combat system become very apparent. There is no scope for experimentation with combat moves with only one button used to attack (and four buttons to block, strangely enough) and no attempt made to apply the same athleticism from the platforming sections into the fighting. Also, despite there sometimes being a lot of enemies on-screen, they’re all as thick as mud and will often stand around waiting to get whacked. There are some nice tag-team moves the Turtles can use, but in general combat is very dissatisfying and hollow, and really serves to hamper enjoyment.

This game is also very short. Gamestyle had it beaten in the space of a few hours. The 16 stages are very short and quite easy, especially given the generous number of checkpoints should you happen to stuff up. Extra difficulty levels would have gone greatly appreciated, for aside from unlocking extra artwork and film clips, there is no incentive to replay the game at all. The most damning criticism of this game, however, is the total lack of multiplayer support. Granted, the way the game is constructed would make multiplayer gaming very difficult to pull off. However, the TMNT games have become synonymous with multiplayer gameplay, so to not have it in this game in any way feels very wrong somehow.

This is certainly the best of the modern-day TMNT games, and we think that Ubisoft have a sound template to build on. We certainly hope that, should they develop another game with the boys in green, they will improve the formula, particularly the combat. As it is, this first effort of theirs is distinctly average. The concept and structure have potential, but it was largely unrealised in this game. While not as soul-destroying as most other licensed games, this is still only worth a rental at most, and certainly not worth paying full-price for.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Drew Middlemas