The people who mostly hang around here at Absolute Gaming are of a certain generation. Namely shellsuits and cool 80’s and 90’s cartoons being a staple part of our childhoods. Take the “Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles” for instance. Back then we had the quirky cartoon show and the animatronic/live action suited movies to get excited about.
As time goes on though we begin to see re-iterations of what we held dear, like Transformers and indeed the TMNT franchise, which leads me on to the new Turtles game, Danger of the Ooze. On paper this should be a very promising little game. It is made by WayForward Studios, who did the really impressive remastering of Duck Tales for Capcom and on playing the game you get a pleasant vibe of the old Metroidvania titles that gave hours of entertainment past and present.
This is where the goodness ends though. The simple truth is that even though this is the nucleus of something great, the execution of it is just awful and really destroys any enjoyment you may get from it. The graphics are useful enough, but why oh why would you spend time having the characters lip synch in the cutscenes for them to then look like dodgy anime characters in game when they have a chat with each other. Seems like laziness, especially if the tech is already there and all of it is IN GAME, not even FMV.
The game is split into different sections, which become unlocked over time and the obvious progression. The trouble is that a lot of the other issues that come with Danger of the Ooze are so frustrating that it does become really difficult to bring yourself to get past the first few areas. It does do everything you would want the Metroidvania styled games to do and tries to remain close to those ingredients, but everything seems rushed and a bit off when you consider the greatest problem that we have here.
The combat system is both unfair and unplayable, making it difficult to enjoy without getting extremely frustrated. You have a basic attack and these can be moved into combos with the right button presses, but getting these to pull off is something of a minor miracle. If I was a kid playing it I would no doubt he hammering the X button and in doing so would have the turtles doing a build up move which doesn’t actually hit anyone, leaving me more likely to get some damage in return. This is made even worse with some really appalling enemy spawns, which has seen them appear on ledges where you just know you’ll not only be hit when you climb up, you will then also be thrown back down off said ledge when it happens.
The enemies respawn every time you go back into a room as well, so not having a good combat system to get rid of them just doesn’t seem right. The most annoying thing of all though is that should all four of your characters be captured (it’s a cartoon, so the heroes never DIE as such) and you have to reload the save, you begin all the way back in the sewers again, rather from your last saving point, which is just stupid.
What I don’t get with TMNT: Danger of the Ooze is the fact that it comes from a group of guys that made a very impressive remastering of a platformer and then when they get a chance to prove themselves they do this, instead of learning from what they’d done and making something fun to play, instead of a game which feels like an absolute chore. I wish I could say this was worth buying, but there just isn’t anything worth getting this for, unless you have kids who are diehard fans and just have to own it.
This title retails at £25 on average, which could get you Shadow Complex AND Strider and leave you with change. Maybe either one of those and the iconic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night could rock your boat. Either way though, mix and match two out of these three and you will have so much more for your money than what this brings to the table.
The simple truth of the matter is that I couldn’t bring myself to play past two hours of this game. I got so frustrated, angry, demented, disappointed and every other negative emotion inbetween that I just could not take it. What really disappoints me, as I’ve said already is the fact that this Turtles game could have been so much more. Is it a fault of time constraints or is it simply a case of the wrong people making the wrong game at the wrong time? Perhaps we shall never know, but one thing is for sure. DO NOT BUY THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. It’s not just a waste of a purchase, it is also a waste of a rental price. The controls are dull and don’t work, the animations and lip syching are just clunky and rushed and the respawning system is just really unfair, especially when you’re trying to figure out just what combo you need to get behind an enemy robot ripped from Terminator who is currently shooting seven shades of shell out of you.
The reason I brought up the age thing is because when you look at the games of this type from our generation you see just how great they were, as well as thought out. Super Metroid, Symphony of the Night and so on were just laid out so well, with great boss battles, loads of useful pickups and the right atmosphere to gel everything together. Perhaps WayForward should have looked further into the past to produce something with a future, rather than giving us something that should have been buried a long time ago. This game should have stayed in the sewer along with the rest of the crap that’s down there. Thanks to Xbox for the opportunity to review this game.
One word...... AVOID!!!
