The
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. The new cartoon has been a largely successful means of introducing a newer, younger audience to the heroes in a half-shell, but the game doesn't follow the same path.
TMNT: Out of the Shadows is inspired by the comic books more than anything else, and it represents a slightly more mature take on the franchise than what has been seen in recent years. Rather than riding on the coattails of an existing pillar of the franchise, the game is in its own stand-alone universe. The overall design of the turtles gives them a more mature and somewhat menacing look as opposed to their rounded, almost cheery look in the most recent cartoon.
That's not to say that the underlying aspects of the team have changed. They're still mutated turtles trained in the art of ninjitsu, and they certainly eat pizza and fight their stable of powerful enemies. In the presentation we played at E3 2013,
we fought off a few groups of street thugs before making our way into a warehouse to fight foot soldiers and mousers. Near the end, we saw Baxter Stockman descend an elevator, and the demo ended shortly thereafter with a massive three-headed hydra mouser menacing the screen.
While the game has more open segments in which you leap from rooftop to rooftop, the more entertaining parts are when you are brawling with enemies. Each turtle has a different move set, which is performed with controller combinations such as holding the right trigger and moving the right thumbstick a quarter-turn. Actual combat is a frenzied affair, and blocks must be performed with the proper timing to be successful and/or counter the enemy's attack. As you do damage, you gain power that you can unleash as Turtle Knockout moves, which do massive damage to enemies.
As enemies are killed, your turtles gain experience and increase levels. Gaining levels grants action points to spend on your choice of turtle, improving them in ways such as unlocking new moves, making their taunts have extra effects, or simply boosting their stats. These ability points form a global pool, so it's possible to spread them out among all turtles or splurge on one.
