By Boot Scraper

If you’re in you late teens or early twenties, you probably know more than you should about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Almost every kid in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was a Turtle fanatic. I know I was. Those green super heroes were into everything from Halloween costumes to lunchboxes. Now, with the new movie out in theaters and this new game, it seems the turtle fever may strike another generation of kids.
The game has you play as one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, the leader, Raphael, the strong bad ass, Donatello, the tech head, and Michelangelo, the comic relief. Together you have to stop an evil ninja gang and ancient monsters hell-bent on destroying New York City. It’s all put together in a great package. Each turtle has his own strengths and weaknesses, and you can switch through them with the press of a button.

The game’s best feature is it’s wonderful gameplay. Most of the game is comprised of fun platform-style jumping across rooftops. It’s very entertaining as complex moves can be pulled off extremely easy and fluidly. The other part of the game is combat, which is performed just as expertly. You can rapidly hit the attack button to piece together wicked combos, or hold it down to unleash a very powerful attack that has you seemingly teleport from enemy to enemy and hit each one with a devastating blow. Just like the platforming action, it’s easy to pull off, but looks amazingly complex and fluid. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise since the people behind this game also crafted the fantastic Prince of Persia games. You can also have your fellow turtles join the fight for a brief-but-spectacular cooperation move.

The audio is also done fairly well as the voice actors from the movie lend their talents to the game. Each of the characters are brilliantly portrayed and each little cartoony sound effect makes you feel like you’re in the great comics this game comes from. The graphics, on the other hand, are not so good. Other than the great animations, this game does not look like it is being played on a 360, or even the original Xbox. It looks like a first generation PS2 title. Nothing in this game screams, or even whispers, next-gen. The textures, lighting, environments, and character design seem many years behind. The bad graphics could easily be ignored because of the brilliant gameplay, but the big fault in this game cannot.

The replay value of this game is almost nil. There are some challenge maps that have you quickly run through an obstacle course or defeat a bunch of bad guys and some unlockables like cheats, movie clips, and art, but other than that, there’s nothing. You would think that with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game you would have some co-op play, but no. You can only play single player. The single player game isn’t even that long. It took me about seven hours to beat it twice.

It is a great single player game with some of the most solid platforming action around, but after just several hours of this game, you have done everything it offers. This game’s only true fault is it’s length. Only the hardcore turtle fans would want to actually purchase it. For everybody else, it’s a great rental.
Score: 7 out of 10.