TMNT
For PS2 and every other platform.
Verdict: Heroes in half a shell.
Rating: 2 ½/5
Considering their watery origins and love of pizza, the green skinned brothers are a surprisingly nimble bunch. I guess that’s down to their mutant genes, ninja training and teenage metabolism but with Ubisoft at the helm it’s easy to see the Prince of Persia series providing plenty of acrobatic inspiration.
As ninjas, the turtles have plenty of moves to get around town with. The usual wall running and double jumping antics that shuriken wielders usually employ are all here and necessary to make it from A to B as you undertake a platforming heavy game of city scaling heroics.
The PoP format lends itself well to the turtles world of sewers and sky scrapers but the twitchy controls, invisible walls and fixed camera angles often make progress frustrating and the linear roof top running seems distinctly old hat compared to recent titles such as Crackdown.
Like Sands of Time, combat punctuates the game at regular intervals, breaking up the platforming with welcome variety but the average mechanics and limited moves never quite deliver.
Uniquely, the basic move set is supplemented by combo attacks with off-screen turtles and the ability to transform into any of the brothers at a button press. With turtle specific moves this does expand your street fighting repertoire but still never gels satisfyingly like a true Ninja Gaiden’s would.
With their reinvention, the turtles seem to have grown up a little but the franchise has neither returned to its darker comic routes nor fully shed its cartoon skin, choosing to traverse a slightly sanitised in between with wafer thin angst and annoying, over-used ‘comedic’ sound bites.
TMNT does have potential to be a great game but the indifferent level design, no-brain combat and rushed production mean it could do with a little more turtle power before it hits that target.
Tip of the week - download the arcade classic over Xbox Live Arcade for some iconic four player fun.