Disappointment is never a great thing when it comes to video games. That moment when all the hope, expectations, hype and excitement for a game experience dissipates and you are left holding your controller and shaking your head in disbelief over what you have just played. Sadly the worst example of this for me this year has been TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan by platinum games. This is a game that quite frankly is a travesty.
The reason why I was so hopeful going into Mutants in Manhattan’s release was thanks to last year’s TRANSFORMERS Devastation, a game based on another 80s Generation 1 TV cartoon series. It capitalised on the nostalgia fans had for the Transformers and delivered a solid Platinum Games fighting game though it had a limited roster and you couldn’t play as deceptions. So there was a natural expectation of doing the same with the TMNT franchise. How wrong I was.
Based on the modern Nickelodeon animated series, Mutants in Manhattan never really lives up to the potential such a license in the hands of Platinum Games could and far worse, should have been. Within the first few minutes of gameplay I could tell something was off. Instead of picking a turtle and rushing in one on one combat I found myself as one turtle in a mess with the AI controlled other three simply button mashing my way through generic bad guys with little finesse or even a modicum of sense of control. It felt more as though I was playing a side scrolling arcade game instead of a full retail priced title and I kept waiting for the familiar Platinum Games magic to appear but sadly never did.
The story campaign is a series of missing that use a simple formula of defeat all the enemies, perform out of place objective mini games before tackling the rogues gallery of well known TMNT bad guys such as Beebop and Rocksteady as you fight your way to the huge let-down of a finale battle with the big names Orange and Shredder. When I say out of place objectives I am talking about running around the level to seek out enemies, defusing multiple bombs and trampolining on skyscrapers to carry some huge device between buildings in order to get shot of it. The randomness of such tasks left me head scratching through each stage and often in disbelief as the AI controlled Turtles all joined in to defuse a bomb whilst being punched and kicked by enemies.
Compounded by the introduction of ‘Turtle Vision’ , an utter rip off from the Batman Arkham series own Detective Vision, where you can suddenly go all infra red and detect all enemies in an area or target objectives and I quickly found myself questioning just what the hell went on in the design and research stage of development. Following on from that and each turtle has the ability to wall climb like Spider-Man all of a sudden and it was clear that Platinum Games really never chose a single direction for the gameplay and instead tried going for throwing everything into the pot and hoping for the best. The mechanics fail to compliment each other and so leaves the sense of confusion to how they were used.
Then you have the abilities of the individual Turtles, each with their own well known personality and iconic weapon choices. You can tailor their Turtle load outs which hold the special moves which can be triggered during a fight that can lead to an individual power move or a team combo move to activating a team buff mode. The Team combo move is a big visual attack where after successfully hitting the target, the other turtles will join in for a high impact move. But it then gets rather weird such as some options for the load outs will have strange abilities such as the power to slow down time allowing for extra attack hits or to turn into a cheerleader which will reduce the cool downs of all the turtle’s special moves. Between stages these can be upgraded and personalised for each turtle but again it’s all just a messy way of forcing the appearance of depth to what really is nothing more than a mash the buttons and hit a special move gameplay.
The variation in the stages is also stale, you face the same enemy groups along the way and once you get to the boss battle, every element that feels wrong all come together for a fight that always feels less like a true fight and more a keep hitting those buttons till you grind down the seven health bars, yup each boss has seven health bars you need to deplete in order to win. The boss fights feel uninspired with them having a signature mega cheap special move to avoid and cheesy hit moves as their health bars are taken out. They all felt clumsy encounters and with the AI controlled Turtles triggering their own special moves at random you could almost leave them to it to a degree.
To add more randomness to the mix, you can also carry four items such as pizza to regain health, bombs to add a elemental damage attack or even throw a gun turret into the battle. These can be purchased from Master Splinter back in the Turtle’s sewer base and checkpoints in the stage will offer a manhole portal that will instantly take you to that shop to buy more. Even if you are on top of a skyscraper you can find one. April O’Neil acts as your voice in the head, guiding and giving tips during the stage on what to do and some narration on action as well which only serves to be annoying at times especially when April starts speaking like a quantum physicist who just happens to be able to work out all the science stuff before Donatello can, you wonder why she is just a news reporter by the end.
It has no challenge mode, something Platinum Game is known for, instead you can replay the campaign on various difficulty settings, which simply make the enemies more cheap and a Multiplayer mode where you can join other players in the campaign or host your own room. There are collectibles to be found that unlock comic book covers and the cut scenes from each stage can be viewed in the theatre mode. But it all feels lacking of any real modes outside the story campaign to justify its full retail price and with a presentation that honestly just feels cheap and unimaginative outside of a £15 arcade title.
TMNT Mutants in Manhattan is wrong on so many levels that to say its terrible is being polite. The release no doubt timed well to meet the release of the big screen TMNT sequel and it will no doubt go well with a young fan of the TV series demographic. But for fans of Platinum Games combat titles this will leave you wondering if they just put this together and went to lunch and never bothered to look at it again. A real mess of ideas that fail to really connect and lacklustre stages and boss fights has me confused as to what happened following TRANSFORMERS Devastation that made them leave out everything that worked well and had them playing so safe they ended up making such a god awful game.
Not even a bargain bucket price recommendation from me on this one, wait for the sales and only if the price lands under £10 because it really won’t leave you believing its worth anything more than that. The Cowabunga is missing from Mutants in Manhattan, and not even a Super Shredder dancing to Go Ninja Go Ninja Go can help make this experience worth paying for!
For the best turtle experience, save your money and go see the film instead!
