When I was a kid, I remember one of
the best television shows around was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My
friends and I would pretend that we were each one of then and play out battles.
Even though that was fun, one of the best ways to pass time was put in one of
the Ninja Turtle video games and duke it out against myriads of enemies.
Recently there has been a “resurrection” of this series and there have been two
not so good video games released over the past couple of years. The developers
wanted to have another stab at it with this latest release. Read on to find out
if this game is worth your time or if you should avoid it.
The story goes like this: the
Turtles have been training for a while and it is a good thing that they have. A
giant object is coming towards Earth and it is the fierce Triceraton’s and their
home world. Their goal is to find the inventor of the Teleportal technology.
Players will soon find out that the inventor of this technology is Professor
Honeycutt who is a friend of the Turtles. Unfortunately he left Earth and moved
back to his home world to pursue new ideas. When the malicious Triceratons hear
this they do not believe it and invade Earth. It is up to the Turtles to save
the world. Hopefully they are up to this challenge.
There are a few modes for players to
partake in. First there is the story mode in which the Turtles are trying to
save the world from its impending doom. There are more than 60 missions to keep
players occupied for a long time. If you ever wish to go back to a previous
mission you can go into Free Battle mode to gather previously uncollected
crystals and whatnot. Challenge mode has two different modes to play in: score
attack where you try to see how many enemies you can defeat before you are taken
out. Next is the timed attack in which you have a fixed time to defeat a certain
amount of enemies.
Just like every other Ninja Turtle
game that I am aware of, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare is a
beat-em-up game. This means that during the course of the game players will
fight myriads of enemies until they reach a point in the game where they can
move forward. After some stages have been passed, players will then fight a big
boss battle. The problem with this game is that it gets repetitive and boring
really quickly. The developers tried to break up the monotony somewhat by
allowing players to create their “ultimate” Turtle, and even though this is
really nice, the game still becomes really tedious and boring quickly.
One of the better things about this
game is the upgrade system. As you progress throughout each level you can find
crystals and trade then in for new moves and combos. So the more crystals you
collect during a mission means the more powerful your Turtle will become. This
is a great way for the players to really put their own personality into the game
and trying to create the Turtle that is best suited for your style of play even
further.
The game features cel-shading
graphics that look fine and are animated somewhat fluidly. The environments that
players will participate in are really bland and somewhat boring as well. Also
the character details are somewhat low; at times it is hard to tell if you are
trying to fight your friends or an enemy. Between each mission players will get
treated to a cutscene that is either from the newly revised cartoon or one using
the in-game graphics engine. These cutscenes are decent looking but they are
devoid of detail just like the rest of the game. Another huge annoyance is that
players will notice that they are fighting the camera to get a good angle of the
action as much as the enemies.
The sound in this game is nothing
special. The new theme song is really horrid and makes me yearn to hear the old
one once more. The voice overwork is pretty atrocious and downright annoying to
hear. The sound effects are really generic and boring sounding. Needless to say,
if you want to torture yourself and play the game, you will want to hit the mute
button and turn on your stereo to compensate for this.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3:
Mutant Nightmare is rated E10+ for Everyone and contains cartoon violence. It
requires 42kb on your memory card.
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Gameplay: 5.5
The action for this game is palatable, but the game gets annoying and
repetitive really quickly.
Graphics: 5.5
The graphics are Ok, but really devoid of detail. The thing that is
really annoying and gets major points deducted is the crappy camera that this
game contains. You will be fighting to get a good view of the action as much as
the enemies.
Sound: 4.5
The noise this game tries to pass off as sound is really bad. Mute your
TV and turn on your stereo, you will thank me later.
Difficulty: Easy
If you have half a brain in your head, and the patience to play through
all of the monotony of this game, you will find that it is really simple to play
though and beat.
Concept: 7.6
Even though the game does a lot bad, I really have to give it props for
including an unlockable copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.
The only sad thing is that this Ninja Turtle game is better than the one it came
packaged with
Multiplayer: 5.6
All of the game’s various modes can be played with more than one
character. The problem is finding up to three other people who would want to
play this game with you.
Overall: 5.6
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare is a true nightmare to
sit down and play for a long period of time. Only purchase this game if you are
a true die-hard fan of the series, otherwise save your money for something
better.
