Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Remember back in the day when you'd pull out your brand new Nintendo or Super Nintendo with the sharp hint of glee in your eyes? You'd grab "Turtles In Time" or any of the other Ninja Turtles games that were around for those systems and you'd slide it into the console. This was bliss, wasn't it? And do you know why? Because the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" kick mighty ass, that's why.

It's been over ten years since the Ninja Turtles had their hay-day in the video game world and finally they're just about to have a renaissance with the release of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Now, this game is based on the new cartoon, rather than the old one, but all the basic game-play that set the original games aside from others still remains. You can have two player missions, you have semi-interactive areas that you can use to defeat the enemies like fire hydrants, cars, exploding barrels, such what.

Yet, I do have many criticisms. First of all, certain aspects of the new story are so drastically different from the old story. For one, in the old story, Baxter Stalkman is mutated into a fly, which kicks ass, but in the new story, he just builds a robot suit. How lame is that? April O'Neal isn't a reporter anymore, she works for Shredder. These are small things, but I guess I've got a thing for tradition. Secondly, I said earlier that the areas are interactive, but to a limited degree. In the two player missions there's only a limited are of space your limited too until you can't go any further. The foot soldiers pretty much stand there, they rarely ever attack. The lines that the turtles spew out ("Shellshock!", "Shellshocker!") get annoying and repetitive.

All these criticisms aside, it still is a great game that you can really get into. I haven't beaten Shredder yet, because he's hella hard, but I'm gonna try... right... now...

From a graphics point of view this game is very impressive. Sadly from a gameplay angle it's kind of limited and every level is basically the same thing.

This could basically be described as a side-scrolling beat-em-up, though the uncontrollable camera POV becomes very annoying. And compared with old-school games of the same genre, it doesn't hold up. Pow, biff, bam, smack! It just goes on and on for the whole game.

There are some levels that could have been cool, like the rooftop or subway stages. How cool would it have been to chuck the bad guys off the roof or onto the subway tracks? Very, but an invisible wall prevents this from happening. It's so disappointed that a lot of exploration is cut short. In the subway level trains rocket past in the tunnels on either side of you, but in the middle tunnel (where you battle loads of bad guys) there's no trains at all. Most levels are this way, there's just no REAL interaction with the environment.

The Streets of Rage games on the Genesis were better. It's the same thing. The city is overrun with thugs headed by a big boss. You beat them up and kill the boss. TMNT does not improve on this concept. Cute graphics though.

It's also kind of easy. The game is totally aimed at kids. I've seen better, I've seen worse. But I would suggest renting the game as it's long-time appeal is drastically short.

Now I am a long time fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and grew up with the 1980s cartoons as well as the three live action movies.

In 2003 when I discover about the new series and the new toys I thought I give it a look.

I started to enjoy it at first because it felt like the films which were inspired by the comic book series.

And like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before the 2003 Series it of course got it own collection of video games.

But the 2003 series I also lost interest for many reasons and this is one of them.

The game for starters is made by Konami the same people who gave us all the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games we grew up with like The Arcade Game and Turtles In Time.

However this game is just short on everything it is just down right boring.

The Graphics in the game are very well done and it gives you the feel of being on the show with the intro and cut scenes from the cartoon series itself.

But the game feature the issues of repeat voice taunts where you hear them so many times that it will not be funny as well as facing the same enemies over and over so it gets very boring rather fast, the game also has some challenging boss battles. The music is easy to put you to sleep The controls at least workable however the game is just too much of a let down and this is coming from a long time fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The game is great to look at but not so much to play. Only get it if you are a fan of the Turtles it just not a game I would recommend.

I give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) an 6 out of 10

Yeah. title is cool, but game is horrible, boring corridor beat'n'up, zero interactive with world, just pressing 2 buttons to hit and kill a bunch of identical enemies.