It's slightly better than Out of the Shadows, but that's not saying much.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn't do much on the presentation side. The graphics look eerily familiar to Konami's Xbox/GameCube/PS2 releases, with very minimal background design and repetitive animations. The hit detection can be off at times as well, especially if you're throwing enemies into dumpsters or cans. Also, there's a lot of loading time. Even when all you're doing is watching cinemas, the load screen consistently interrupts. It's like a first-generation Xbox 360 game, not something you'd see in 2013. Even Ubisoft's TMNT has a more complex design than this.
The voice actor sound-alikes are good – still not sure if that's really Jason Biggs, Sean Astin and company voicing the Turtles – but the overuse of the same samples is nauseating. They say the same stuff over and over again, particularly the Kraang, who can't even use their intellect to come up with new insults. The music's okay, but repeats as badly as the voice samples.
If you need a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experience for your Xbox 360 – really, you should've downloaded the original arcade game while it was available. While this new Turtles game isn't as broken as Out of the Shadows, it's just as problematic, due to is limited combat, weak presentation and lack of extra features. Even the scoreboards are local, with no connectivity to Xbox Live. Not that there would've been a big community, but still…
Give it a rent if you have kids, as it's avaialble at Redbox. Otherwise, just stick with watching the show, preferably with a side of pizza.
(Reviewed on Xbox 360.)
Score: 5.5 / 10
