TMNT – Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

Cowabunga dudes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is a 3D remake of the classic arcade and Snes scrolling beat-em-up. Every one’s favourite turtles are back – Leo, Mikey, Raph… do I have to say the other one… yes ok, and Don.

As I used to play this ‘totally rad and frankly bodacious’ game in the arcades – of course I was interested in seeing what Ubisoft has done with the Konami classic.

A quick history lesson – the Turtles are in pursuit of the evil git Shredder, who, with the help of  Krang – who was the weird brain dude contained in a rather camp looking pink robot, has made off with the Statue of Liberty! Nooo! Then as the Turtles think they have them both cornered, the victory is foiled as the evil duo open a time portal and the Turtles get sucked in. You then need to eat Pizza and fight your way back to the future!  That is the story.

If you have never played the original, I would say give this version a go but play the original too. The re-make is also the arcade version of  TMNT- Turtles in Time and not the Snes version so there are bits missing, like the stage with Bebop and Rocksteady and the one inside the Technodrome.

Now if this was a true ‘re-shell’, then why was it that the first thing I noticed when I started to play the game was that the glorious 80’s theme tune ‘Pizza Power’ was not there! Maybe there were licensing issues, who’s knows, but the whole game has had a new soundtrack, which is now a cross between Level 42, the Cantina band from Star wars and a small child smashing a dustbin lid with a spoon. Also the voice’s have been re-done by the cast of the 2003 animated series, but they do get annoying, when all you hear is “my toes, my toes” for the majority of the game.

The visuals are good – the characters kinda remind me of plasticine models and the environments seem a bit too airbrushed. They are all nice and in high def, but it just seems to lack the gritty personality of the original.

As for the gameplay – it’s good. Ubisoft did well getting this right. The controls takes a bit of getting used to when it comes to moving around the screen and to start with the Turtles feel a little clunky but once you have sussed it, the game becomes a fast paced, kick the crap out of everything button bash-fest. Apart from the main game there is also a survival mode and a quick-play stage select.

Co-op multiplayer with 4 players is good, and this can be done offline or over Xbox Live. But having 4 buff Turtles that look very similar on the screen at once, scares and confuses me. It reminds me of my Power Stone days when I would just lose my character amongst the on screen havoc and get my ass kicked.

Achievements are easy to acquire and you get them just by doing what you need to do to finish the game.

At 800 Microsoft points, TMNT – Turtles in Time Re-Shelled is a reasonable price, but I would still recommend downloading the trial first before ‘shelling’ out.