TMNT: Out of the Shadows will make you feel many things, Joy,nostalgia,disappointment and at times frustration. However for the most part the game is a shell of a time.
OVERVIEW:
The turtles are back with a new grittier art style that adopts the personalities of the turtles from the surprisingly good new Nickelodeon show. The timeline in this game is a bit different or at least it seems that way as April now looks like she's at least 18-19. Overall the artistic changes in my opinion suit the turtles and I appreciate the grittier angle that the developers went with. The game is a beat em up allowing you to control 1 of the 4 turtles at a time while giving you the option to switch between them on the fly.There are also brief platforming sections that can look quite cool when the camera behaves it's self. There is 4 player online co-op and 2 player split screen offline. This game was really meant to be played with friends but it's doable solo. Also there is a arcade mode available delivering a more traditional side scrolling beat em up version of the main game. Alright enough with the overview let's get into it.
GRAPHICS:
The graphics will not blow you away but the game has nice style and can look good in some sections. The turtles are detailed and make various facial expressions. Animations look smooth for the most part. There are glitches such as floating dead enemies and weapons but nothing major.The game looks a bit cleaner in the arcade mode. Cutscenes are played out through comic book panels that could have maybe been drawn a bit better(similar to sonic and the secret rings) but they serve their purpose and the voice acting is good so it's not terrible. Camera wise is probably where you will run into most of the trouble it can be a struggle at times to get it to do what you want.The environments can also be a bit uninspired.
SOUND:
Sound wise it's hit and miss. At times it's awesome and you can here the turtles walking back and forth, whether it's Donnie talking about multiple dimensions or Mikey talking about finding and raising an orphan baby, it can be pretty hilarious. The issue is that it can sometimes interrupt cutscene dialog if it's triggered at the wrong time. The voice acting itself is just fine but boss battles do suffer from lack of variety as you will here the same one-liners often. The soundtrack is serviceable sometimes it seems out of place but nothing to complain about. (the title screen music is awesome though)
GAMEPLAY:
TMNT:OOTS handles similar to Arkham city in the way that you can move from enemy to enemy and chain combos. You can counter,dodge, Punch,kick,preform special movies when you fill up your energy bar and finishing attacks become available after a long enough combo. You can also preform special tag team attacks. The turtles are agile and each have their own set of stats and combos. The devs did a good job of making each turtle feel distinctively different giving this beat em up more variety. The thing that surprised me about this game was how much you could upgrade the turtles. Each turtle has around 4 separate ability trees as well as weapon upgrades. It's up to you whether you want to power up only your favorites or create a more balanced team(you'll find out though that the latter is the way to go). The controls can be a bit slow at times but overall you'll be stringing awesome combos together without to may technical issues. The turtles a can collect and use various items such as shuriken's energy drinks, power ups and of course Pizza! The pizza can be held onto and used when you or a fallen brother needs it. Gameplay is really where the game is at it's best it does a lot right and delivers a butt kicking experience previous TMNT games have lacked. The camera can hinder the gameplay to some degree as it gets hung up in walls or just takes a weird angle but you can typically fix it rather quickly. The game can be difficult and your AI brothers don't make it any easier as they aren't always on top of their game. This is why the game is best played with at least one other person, it just makes it less frustrating. Sometimes you'll feel like the amount of enemies are endless but most of the time you'll be to busy raising shell to notice.
FUNFACTOR:
All glitches and visual hang ups aside the game is fun. For a beat em up this game has nice variety in moves and combos along with lots of upgrades. It's a great game to play with a buddy and is made even better if you have "Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go! playing in the background and a cheesy pizza on hand. A lot of the critics have been acting as if this was meant to be a AAA title when it's just mean to be a fun arcade game. It's not perfect but and it can be a bit frustrating at times but overall if you like the turtles you should enjoy playing this. Never once did I regret my purchase and I was honestly kind of stunned when I saw some of the reviews. Arcade mode is also very worth playing.
ONLINE:
The game is good online playing with others is a blast and you won't have issues with lag and such .
OVERALL:
This has been a polarizing game with reviews all over the place. But I'm here to tell you that if you have $15 to spare, you enjoy arkham style combat and you love the turtles you should definitely check this game out. It does a lot right, and I feel like it hasn't really been getting the credit it deserves. This game has character and style and while it isn't perfect it makes up for it in the amount of fun you'll have playing this with friends. There is a decent amount of content here for an arcade title and it's a great pick up and play kind of game. It may not be the perfect TMNT game we've been hoping for but it comes close and is really only held back by technical issues as the game does it's best to capture the spirit of the turtles and delivers in terms of style,gameplay.
With games like Halo and the upcoming TMNT omitting local multiplayer,it seems like it's becoming a thing of the past. Here's why the death of local mutliplayer would kill some of what makes gaming great.
TMNT was a shocker not having local co-op. Almost seems criminal not to have it.
Agree with this. I thought with more powerful consoles we'd have a lot more options for split-screen and such.
I think it's because the consoles are outputting a lot more in terms of graphics and whatever else is going on on-screen is the exact reason there isn't any co-op.
Yea that's true, but that's not something i expected. I guess things work differently in practice than on paper.
I still think with the right optimization, and option graphical downgrades could make it work. But then again, it would require a lot of effort which developers don't want to waste time on.
True, but could you imagine the fans and review backlash and outcry if a game didn't have up to par graphics just to accommodate co-op?
Might fly with some budget titles but for something triple A, that would be a no go.
That's a shame too because I would rather have co-op in all my games. That is why CoD still gets played in my house till this day.
The fact that gears of war, pc doesn't have it, is very sad. Pc is very capable of local multi-player. See all those lovely indie games.
'Gaming's Worst Trend'
aye, broken releases, shadey dlc and season passes don't compare
I feel like they are telling everyone to go and buy their own game console and their own copy of the game...
Take a look at some recent games that everybody loves to hate despite the fact that they're not so bad.
That Batman MP sucked ass, but the campaign was awesome. It had the best writing and boss fights in the series.
I agree with the addition of Lost World. It wasn't perfect, but neither was it a bad game. Heck, when you have games like Sonic 06' and Rise of Lyric, calling it a bad game would be an INSULT.
Lost World is a pretty good game and some of the levels esp early on are pretty much Genesis levels in 3D with branching paths and momentum based. The articles is one of 4 people I seen online ACTUALLY understand what Sonic is. It's not speed but momentum on Genesis.
Sadly, Star Wars: Battlefront is NOT Battlefield with a Star Wars skin. If it was, the game would be much better.
I had no idea Red Steel was hated so much. That was one of the better Wii launch games IMO. Had a lot of fun playing multiplayer.
I liked Red Steel too! Red Steel 2 as well. I do not care for Red Steel 2's graphics so much, but a fun game!
Wow I forgot there was a Red Steel 2! And judging from the ratings, it seems way better.
Just think, within every trash bag, box, and everything else shootable there is money. We could all be rich!!
But seriously...Red Steel 2 was fantastic
Is TMNT: Out of the Shadows the great new turtles game that gamers have all been waiting for?
Spoiler alert: No, it's awful.
I expected it as an arcade game and if it is that good as I didn't really expect it to be, then I would consider playing it if I have the chance.
Thank you for the review! Now I changed my opinion from "I will tread lightly towards it" to "Maybe play it when I have the chance".
The Xbox 360 version is the best one to get as of right now. The Steam/PC version doesn't have Online Coop functioning properly and the Ps3 version isn't out for a few more days. Nice review by the way.