"The teenage turtles ought to retire to save themselves the embarrassment this game brings."

If I were to use every word from the title 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' to form sentences that describe this game, it would have been something like the followings:

- A teenager can make a better game than this.
- Only mutants will enjoy this game.
- The ninjas should have killed whoever developed this game.
- A real life turtle walks five hundred more steps in an hour than any hero in a half-shell walks in the entire game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or TMNT for short, was a popular cartoon series back in the late 80's. I grow up on the half-shell heroes, so much so that I still own some of the figurines today, albeit hiding in the dark corners of the cupboard. In recent years, TMNT was revived with the release of their forth movie. And along with it, a horde of video games that (attempt to) cash in on the series. Unfortunately, just like every other game tie-in, this game is overly simplistic, carelessly made, and downright boring to the last bit.

Plot

The game loosely follows the movie. But if you have not seen the movie yet, do not be afraid. The game will not spoil anything. Basically you play as one of the four turtles over fifteen levels. Between levels, the story is told via stills from the movies and dialogue bubbles between the characters. The story is easy to follow, and most of the time, you would not care about it anyway.

Gameplay

TMNT DS version takes on an extremely simple system. Maybe it was aimed for kids, or the developers think the kids are stupid. Either way, the gameplay is a dull affair of jumping from one place to another, fight a couple of enemies, then jump some more to the next checkpoint.

The 3D environment is nothing more than a backdrop. The actual movement around the environment is severely limited. Players are limited to running to a blinking hotspot and hit one of the three jump buttons - Y, B or A - depending on where the next blinking blue hotspot is - left, straight ahead, or right of the ninja turtle. You can chain the jumps together to perform some acrobatic moves which are nothing more than eye candy. You are not in control of where you want to go, because every hotspot is pre-defined. You job is to get the ninja turtle to jump from one hotspot to another.

Sometimes, you might need to charge up to perform a jump, or flip, or whatever it is that is required. There might be alternative paths that you can choose, but the inability to backtrack means that you will have to replay the whole level again multiple times in order to explore all avenues. But do you really want to get involve in a jumping fest?

The combat system is totally forgettable. There are no enemies while you jump from rooftop to rooftop until you reach a certain part of the level. And even then, there are only three or four waves of foot soldiers, each wave containing a handful of enemies. The combat is nothing more than a button mashing fest. The same 3-hit combo is used over and over again. Most enemies can be killed with only 2 or 3 combos, bosses require more, but the same tactics can be employed, and they are awfully easy. And if you are unfortunate enough to get hit, there is a healthy dose of pizza lying around that will almost guarantee your victory, unless you are really bad at hitting in the right direction. Unfortunately, that can happen. The best way to avoid it is to lure them to come towards you, then rush straight into them and belt out your 3-hit combo.

Another frustrating aspect of the game is the inability to choose who you want to play as. This game is biased towards Raphael and Michelangelo. You want to play as Leonardo or Donatello? Tough luck. The hero turtle is predefined on each level. You can summon your brothers to do your biddings when you have enough 'power ups', but it's not like you can't take care of the situation yourself. Regrettably, none of the four turtles stood apart from each other. They do not have unique moves and all feel very generic. The same 3-hit combo works on everyone.

Being on the DS, this game does not use any of the DS functionality. There is no touch screen or mic support. The dual screen is used nothing more than providing information on the current level. It is very disappointing.

The playing time is horrible short. If you have the sudden urge to play TMNT on the DS, rent it (if you can find a store that stocks this). You can rent it in the morning, and return it by lunch time.

Graphics

The words 'crude' and 'ugly' comes to mind. The graphics engine is not taking the full advantage of the hardware. Polygon count is very low, but in the least you can make out the surrounding environment. However, I have had trouble with one of the stage due to the low-res. I was meant to slide down a wire by holding on the charge button until I need to jump again. But because of the low-res, the wire becomes invisible, and I ended up leaping to my 'death'.

Character models are butt ugly. You can't even see the characters clearly. The only reason why you know you are controlling Michelangelo is because of the colour headband (or eyeband?) and the weapon he wields. At least the developers got the colour right.

Sound

The sound effect is minimal. You can hear the generic jumping, and heads connecting to weapons. The music is nothing memorable. They are there, but it is not something that you will recall after the game. It might as well not be there.

Replay value

As medals are awarded for each level based on certain criteria, there is a slight incentive to replay the stage to collect all the TMNT coin tokens, or beat an old time, or take a different path. However, all these incentives are not enough to cover for the shortfall of the broken movement system, or the over-too-soon battles sequence.

In short, there is no point in replaying the game unless you are a hardcore TMNT fan.

Overall

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is meant to be a cowabunga, exciting and entertaining experience of seeing your favourite ninja pummelling the foot soldier into oblivion. This game has none of that. What we got is a boring, shoddy, shadow experience of seeing your favourite turtle jumping from one place to another, and occasionally belt out the same move on every single enemy who is unfortunate enough to be in the way.

Ubisoft is a hit and miss company. On one hand, we have Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, and on the other, we have this. The French company has done an appalling job of transforming TMNT into the 21st century. It is nothing more than a lousy attempt to cash-in on the franchise. The presentation is weak, the battle system is dull, and the movement is so limited that you might as well replace the turtles with a one-legged stick figure with one eye poked out. At least the stick figure has some entertaining value.

All in all, the DS version is very broken, awful and downright boring. If you have the urge to play a TMNT game, play the arcade game that was released back in the 80's. It is much more playable than this game.

Good:

* A brain-dead game (no thinking required)
* Very easy to play
* Some replay value

Bad:

* Extremely short play time
* Overly simplistic battle system
* Limited movement
* Rough and pixelated graphics

Score (out of 10)

Plot: 1
Gameplay: 1
Graphics: 3
Sound: 5
Replay: 2

Overall: 2

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/08

Game Release: TMNT (US, 03/20/07)