Metacritic scores will factor into a decision on including a game or not, although to be fair I'll just be keeping an eye on really poor games, from a variety of formats. These reviews won't have a score attached to them, but will close on a paragraph detailing whether or not the game in question is worth playing, despite any reputation it might have. So without further ado, here's Game number 1, in a change from the schedule posted a few months back: TMNT on Xbox 360!
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TMNT. As you might expect, it's a game based on the CGI movie of the same name featuring our four favourite turtles. And, as you might expect for a licensed game for kids, it's a platformer, with smatterings of fighting thrown in for good measure alongside the running, jumping and collecting coins. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to it.
Before we REALLY get into the nitty gritty, a few things to note - I reviewed the Xbox 360 version, but from the off it's VERY clear that this is just an upscaled version of the PS2 game, and it's not even done very well. Jagged edges are smoothed to a fashion, but nowhere near to the standard of, say, the 360 version of King Kong, which I'd say is very similar. In fact, I've seen more substandard 360 offerings that look better than TMNT, future Worst Games reviewee Infernal being one of them.
It's also horrendously short. Yes, I know we shouldn't be expecting games like these to last forever, but I would have been infuriated if I had bought the game at full price, only to see the credits after 3 and a half hours. Hell, I was mad that I'd paid full price for Devil May Cry 2 because it was a short game, and it was longer than that! The main reason for this length is probably because, if you're the age at which this game is being marketed, you'll get stuck somewhere. Likely the fighting sections, which do bottle down to "Press X to Win" but near the end of the game more enemies are thrown at you, making some battles a chore rather than a challenge. Again, as a child, you'd probably be screaming blue murder at this point.
So..yeah. For an adult gamer, TMNT is too short, too easy, and not very nice to look at. Not sounding good, and unfortunately from here it only gets worse. The sub-PS2 quality starts to "shine" through during sections where we find our poorly textured heroes fighting enemies on:
- A subway train where the train doesn't move, but the background scrolls behind it (Additionally, you can actually stand in midair between the carriages...)
- The top of an elevator, which is clearly supposed to be moving towards the top of a building, but whilst the walls of the building move, the New York backdrop stays still. ALL. THE. TIME.
- Platforms which fall away into a bottomless pit during a boss move which blinds the screen just long enough for you to die.
When it comes to extra bits after the credits...well, you could play the levels again to collect golden shells to unlock pointless crap, or you could play challenge maps to...well, I don't know why you'd do it to be honest. There's no Live support on 360 at all, so you could try and speed through the levels as quick as you can, but any leaderboards, if they're actually there, would be local only. Poor, poor, poor.
"But Gav, surely there must be SOMETHING good"? Well...it has shadows. Proper ones, and not those silly dark circles you sometimes get in lesser platformers. Yeah, that's about it. It also has Achievements, piss easy ones.
Worth Buying?
Hell no. That said, if you have 4 hours free and you're desperate for an extra 1000 points on your Gamerscore, it's well worth a rental, if you feel you can handle the boring, tedious platforming on offer.
Trust me, you'll have to be desperate. It really is a bad, bad game. I bought it for the express purpose of reviewing it for this series, and even I had to question why at times. Worst £1 ever spent...