TMNT

Date Acquired: 10.10.2009

Date Completed: 5-7-2010

Thoughts: Every gamer who grew up in the 80's and 90's has fond memories of Ninja Turtle video games. Somehow avoiding the licensed game stigma, the Ninja Turtles turned in respectable games on pretty much every system they appeared on: NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy and of course, the arcade. Generally waning poplularity has kept the Tutles out of the public eye in recent times, but 2007's animated movie led to a video game adaptation returning the Turtles to our consoles once again.

My saga with the game is a bit unusual. I rented it when it first came out, played it about halfway through and took it back. I wasn't particularily motivated to finish it at the time. However as time went on, something ate at me. This game has an obnoxious achievement point system. You get 24 points for beating level 2, 28 points for level 3, 32 points for level 4 and so on...This led to me having an acheivement score that always ended in a 3 or 8 which was annoying. So eventually the game was in the bargain bin at gamestop and I decided to fix my gamerscore, so I bought it. I played it just enough to get a normal score, and then left the game again with 535 points or so. But I always knew I'd come back to the game eventually. It represented a too-simple source of achievement points that I just couldn't pass up. Basically you get the full 1000 points doing little more than just finishing the game. After I finished Bioshock 2, I was in the mood for something different, something simple and mindless, and I'll admit, I noticed Chris had started playing it and also stopped at a midway point so he was just one level behind me.

I never saw the movie, but from what I gather, this is a pretty faithful adaptation (Though the Sarah Michelle Gellar-voiced April O'Neal doesn't appear in this game which is a shame. I know it's just her voice but still...)This game doesn't represent anything innovate for either video games in general, or even just videogames starring the ninja turtles. Early in the game you control whichever turtle the game gives you, and then later you can switch between them. As usual, Raphael is the weak link, the short range his sais provide, don't have any other trait that offsets it. You'd think speed, but no, Michaelangelo's nunchucks actually provide the most speed and have a decent range. And of course somewhere along the way, people got the idea that Raphael is everyone's favorite turtle because he's 'edgy' and has " 'tude ". So he gets a starring role in the game, and you have to put up with his same 3 voice clips over and over again, including an annoying 'Heeeeere's Johnny' what that has to do with anything, I just don't know.

I was a little surprised when I checked gameranking's cumulative score and saw how low it was. It's not gaming art, but it's decent. I would have guessed it pulled in about a 70 but it was closer to a 50. Oh well, I had fun with it, it's an adequate time-waster and a great source of achievement points.

To Do: Um, nothing. I have 1000 achievement points, weren't you paying attention? I will never play this game again. It will eventually be tossed into a pile of games that gets traded into gamestop when they give me a bulk deal for 4 or 5 games at a time.