Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Re-Shelled) Review

To accurately use this review as a metaphor for the game in question, I would have to start off with a fun paragraph to prepare you for the tone of what's to come, followed by a lively bit about the story line and the updated 3D graphics, and then once you are settled in and ready to get stuck into the body of the review, it would end.

Oh, and to be authentic you would have to rub your thumbs furiously against your desk until they start to swell slightly, just to complete the experience.

While that would be a valid account of some of the emotions involved while playing TMNT: Turtles in Time, I admit that it doesn't tell the full story.

It is important to note that there is joy to be found under the shell of this Xbox LIVE Arcade game, even if it's all over way too quickly. You may fondly recall shovelling coins into a TMNT arcade cabinet as a youth, selecting your favoured Turtle, and slicing and dicing your way through waves of footsoldiers. You may even have been lucky enough to have had accomplices alongside you to multiply the fun. Unfortunately nostalgia is a cruel mistress, because as much as the original arcade brawler may have made you giggle with glee, the experience really hasn't aged well.

This 're-shelled' version brings the original 4-player arcade game up to date visually with fully overhauled 3D graphics which do a good job of keeping your attention for most of the hour or so you will need to finish this game. That's right, an hour. And that's if you aren't particularly good at this type of game. A handful of brightly coloured levels filled with 1.3 gazillion Foot Soldiers and each ending with a really easy boss battle. That's what you get for your 800MSP. I must have really sucked as a gaming child, because I never finished this one in the arcades. Here on the good old Xbox 360, i think I died twice the whole way through. Which meant I had to play it again just to try a different turtle. But that was also a bit of a waste of time, because all four of the 'awesome dudes' play basically the same. Sure, Donatello has a long staff which gives a bit more range, Raphael is faster, and so on, but at the end of the day all you are going to do is smash that A button like your life depends on it, and then spam the bosses with jump kicks. Over and over again, and then the credits roll.

In TMNT's favour, the animation of the Foot Soldiers are quite well done, and they do some cool looking backflips and roundhouse kicks, but that is to be expected, since the animators didn't have much else to do with their time! I mean, it's not like they were working out complex martial arts techniques for a bevy of varied enemies here. We have Foot Soldiers, in about 5 different colours, we have Sandman type guys, and we have some boss characters. That's all I can remember.

Funny thing though, while I was bashing away at the game, I didn't realise how monotonous it was because I was strangely fixated on getting through to the end. I can't explain it. Usually I try to make a game last as long as possible, I search out every nook and cranny, but here I just wanted to smash through to the end as fast as I could manage. I think I was just excited to face the evil Shredder. But even that was a mighty disappointment, over in a matter of painful minutes. Maybe I was just hungry for the handful of Achievement Points promised to me at the end of this dreary affair.

What we have here is a blast from the past that isn't as much of a blast as you may remember it to be. The little time you will spend with the game will be frantic and amusing, but it is all over way too quickly. Just as you are settling in to the gaudy colour schemes and corny one-liners, and you think you have figured out the most economical way to tear through the Foot Soldiers, it's all over.

Much like this review, in fact.

Pros: