Cowabunga dude!

by Betho

©2009 Beth Sasagi

I don’t often play Xbox Live Arcade games.  You might say that I’m even be avoiding them, especially with some experiences I’ve had in the past that I won’t mention here.

But when I saw the opportunity to play a TMNT game, particularly one that is in fact a ‘re-shelling’, if you will, of a classic Konami game, I could not deny my little Xbox from downloading the 286 megabytes of fun (my Xbox has a mind of its own sometimes, you see). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time – Re-Shelled is just that: it is fun.

It is rare these days that you can find a game that is not trying to convey a deep message about tolerance or trying to show you the results of being good and evil. TMNT does not heap on the deep and meaningful, but in fact pulls colourfully away from reality as you watch your cartoon turtle (Raphael for me) slice and dice his way through time and space in order to retrieve the Statue of Liberty and take down Shredder.

Yes, silly catchphrases are a-plenty in this one, leaving the player with a few giggles here and there as you progress through the levels, each one building up to a boss that needs a good beating at the end. It is this structure of game level that is still found today in most games, from Mass Effect to Assassin’s Creed, and you cannot beat this system.

To start off in this game, you are treated with a cute little cut-scene of the Statue Of Liberty being stolen by Shredder’s henchmen, and the ninja turtles watching it unfold on a small television in their sewer home. Pretty much straight after this, you are launched into the game in a back alley in New York, facing off against Shredder’s seemingly unlimited ninjas.

Whilst no tutorial or move list is given, suffice to say you pick up how to play this game pretty quickly, unless of course you have never played a video game in your life.

Throughout the side-scrolling madness which follows, you wind up in the sewers chasing Shredder until he appears in front of you in a large, shiny holographic form, telling you he is sending you to a time from which you will never return.

Why he didn’t do this earlier, I don’t know, but in the end you are dragged into a portal and you find yourself 250 million years in the past, still battling ninjas, but also battling pterodactyls flinging explosive rocks and yet more ninjas, as well as cave men and velociraptor-riding ninjas. That is until you battle an end of level boss made of mud and are flung into the next time period.

Whilst the repetition of the game play can get a little wearing, the game is still immensely entertaining with the huge number of opponents trying to take you down all at once. There is no set moves list, but you do see some little special attacks reminiscent of the old arcade days, such as flinging your opponent into the screen. It is a little harder to figure out the specific combinations involved in getting these moves done on purpose but it is not at all difficult if you are paying attention.

Mmm… Pizza

That is right, the pizza power-up is back and better than ever! How often in these deep and meaningful gritty gaming times do you see a power-up glowing on the floor, let alone one that is a pizza. Aside from the fun fact that there is pizza power-ups spaced relatively evenly throughout the levels, it is also an enjoyable trip back to the 1991 original.

This is a game that in story mode isn’t all that long, but in multiplayer mode you are given four times the fun as you get to bring all the turtles out for a spin on the old side-scroll action. The leader boards are a great way to see where you measure up in comparison to the rest of the world, though for me it is also a great way to be embarrassed by how much I suck at this game.

The survival mode is a fun challenge to take a crack at once you finish the story mode as it takes you through the whole game again, only this time you don’t have nine lives to run through. Once you finish the game once, it’s not hard to get through, just a little time consuming as the level bosses parade around as if they could really take you on (which they can’t).

Something for the whole family

To cap it all off, this game has a huge appeal for parents as this is something that the kiddies can play and not have the poor parents wondering if the game is a good influence at all on the little ones.

The only bad message I can see in this game would be perhaps the pizza eating; whilst pizza isn’t inherently a bad thing (in fact, I think it is rather a good thing) it’s not healthy. So if you are a health nut who is against mutated turtles, don’t buy this game.

This game truly is for the whole family.  It’s got that turtle-icous nostalgia for the parents, the replay value for the teens, and for the little ones it isn’t really a violent game, so the younger ones get a good run out of it. Overall, if when playing this game, you aren’t joyously singing, or at least humming, the theme some, I’ll eat my old TMNT t-shirt.

A good play and well worth a download.

“7.5/10

©2009 Beth Sasagi

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