TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled review

Essentially a remake of the early nineties arcade game, Turtles in Time Re-Shelled has walked a rocky path of fan anticipation leading up to its release. While initial trailers looked promising, the 1200 point price tag that was slapped onto it felt a little unwarranted. Thankfully, sense prevailed and the price dropped to a far more reasonable 800 before release. Then came reports that the game was to be be based on the inferior arcade version as opposed to the SNES one (for those not in the know, the SNES version had ten levels while the arcade only had nine). Further, the characters of Bebop and Rocksteady were swapped for the movie's Tokka and Rahzar; whether this was due to licensing issues, we're not sure, however it had our inner Turtles fanboy foaming at the mouth.Pushing that to the side, Turtles in Time really isn't that bad. In fact, it's a fairly competent scrolling beat-em-up. Graphically, everything has been overhauled, complete with new sound effects and some remixed music. The music seems to have split people; we, however, like it. The only disappointment is the lack of the Turtles theme tune from the cartoon.The core gameplay elements are as simple as you're going to find. While the graphics have been given an upgrade, the combat is almost identical; the only difference being the full 3D movement. You have a special attack, a normal attack, a jump button and a jumping attack. While getting in close to enemies will activate a couple of throws, this feels completely random. It's not as deep or challenging as other games in the genre, yet there's something here that appeals. It's a game you can completely zone out with and just hammer buttons to your heart's content, and is even better when you have a couple of co-op partners helping you along the way.One thing we're not quite sure about is Krang and Shredder's master plan. The opening cinematic shows them stealing the Statue of Liberty; what they're going to do with it is unknown, though the Turtles seem quite upset about it and go on a rampage down the streets of New York. As the name suggests, levels take place in various time periods, from ancient prehistoric times with foot soldiers riding on dinosaurs, to the futuristic world set eleven years from now. Apparently in that time we'll all be riding hoverboards along motorways built in the sky. It's a good way of changing the environment, with each one coming with hazards that need to be avoided as well as an end of level boss. There are some annoying moments: the way your character gets knocked down and can take what seems like an eternity to get back to his feet, and sometimes you'll find yourself trapped in an endless loop of getting knocked down over and over again. Good old fashioned game design that we really don't miss.Aside from the main story and co-op modes, you do get Survival. Here you have to complete the game without dying once. A hard (almost impossible) task, if you don't recruit some friends to help you. While this offers more of a challenge than the main story, there's very little here to keep you occupied. Achievement-lovers will find some added incentive with some decent and, at times, difficult achievements to unlock. And because of the short nature of the game, we actually found ourselves turning to these in order to lengthen our experience somewhat.Those expecting something wonderful from this release have probably set their expectations too high. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled isnt trying to redefine scrolling beat-em-ups on XBLA; it's merely trying to offer a bite-sized nugget of updated retro fun, and that's exactly what Ubi-Soft have given us with this.