Gaming Target - GameCube: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Written by Kyle Williams on May 27, 2003

First Impressions: T - U - R - T - L - E Power!

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are making a push to regain the popularity throne that they held back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fox is doing their part with a successful new animated series, Playmates is resurrecting their TMNT line of action figures with a fresh look and Konami is bringing us a newfangled videogame adventure. Compared to the last Turtle blitz that we saw, this one is exploring a slightly darker take on the franchise, bringing the look and feel of the various products a little bit closer to the original comic book series.

Now, some of you may be thinking back to the 8-bit days and are saying to yourself, "Didn't the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles videogame stink?" Well, that very first one on the NES was a few pancakes short of a stack but the arcade was host to a fantastic action title that allowed four complete strangers to tackle the Foot Clan head on. Most of us lost many a quarter in those arcade units and the several variations of the game engine that followed (anybody else remember The Simpsons?). For this new interactive endeavor, Konami is recreating the magic of that arcade smash. When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hits all three consoles and the PC this fall, it will treat players to all of the gameplay excitement that they remember. The best thing is that this new game is expanding on the old system with fully 3D graphics, an improved fighting and combo engine and a lot more Foot stomping action. Of course, recapturing that old-school charm is a task best suited for those that created the original. So, Konami has brought back many members of the original arcade development team to advise the production of this new title.

E3 gave us the opportunity to give this title a quick little test drive. First and foremost, the game looks like it is torn straight from the FoxBox Saturday morning lineup. The 3D graphics use cel-shading to impeccably recreate the look and feel of the cartoon with a generally darker slant than any of Konami's previous interactive outings for the turtles. Everything about this title screams "character," from the comic book-esque onomatopoetic captions to the flawless animations and character designs. Fortunately, the game is able to complement that character with a well thought out combat engine. With a background in the arcade, it is not surprising that TMNT's controls are extremely accessible to anybody with opposable thumbs. Fortunately, a somewhat deeper combo system, most of which will need to be unlocked over the course of the game, is being implemented in hopes of prolonging the at-home experience. If the combos and special moves are flashy enough, this alone should be enough incentive to make it all the way through the title.

While this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game is (tragically) limiting us to two-player cooperative play, there will still be some combo attacks that call all four of the turtles out at once. On the upside, there is more to the multiplayer experience coming than just the cooperative mode. All of you fighting fans will be pleased to know that there will be a head-to-head versus mode that draws straight from the fighting classics. This mode wasn't playable at E3, but I can guarantee that you will be able to play as more than just the four heroes on the half-shell. I'm guessing that just about every character in the game will be playable here which means we should see Casey Jones, Splinter, The Shredder, Baxter Stockman, a Foot Soldier and even more thrown into the mix.