Posted: 08/30/13

"I LOVE BEING A TURTLE!!!!!!!!!" something you will never say while playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, a videogame starring hideously mutated turtle-men named after artists from the Italian Renaissance. If you're familiar with the Turtles animated series currently airing on Nickelodeon, or any of the other various incarnations of these "radical reptiles," you'll notice right away that something is different about this particular ninja brood. These heroes in a half-shell look strangely realistic -- other than the whole teeth thing -- with hideous gawky faces only a mutant rat-man could love. Of course you shouldn't judge a turtle by its carapace, but once you get over your initial revulsion, you might actually feel sorry for these cursed teenage brothers. And you'll most definitely feel sorry for yourself. To be a turtle trapped in a game this bad is a truly wretched fate.

Looking at the full-featured character customization screen, you can see that Out of the Shadows goes for broke when it comes to combat... and broke is exactly where it ends up. There are upgradeable attack strings, launchers, counters, team attacks, special weapon techniques, finishers, throws, running attacks, passive character buffs, and more, but the game barely functions even if you stick with the most basic techniques. If only you could see what you were doing a little better, and if the game didn't stutter and chop for no apparent reason, and maybe if there were a tighter connection between the buttons you press and what happens on screen. Out of the Shadows might have had a reasonably deep and enjoyable combat system.

But then the game would also probably want to make it so you could get your turtle to swing at the thing you want him to swing at, and get the quarter and half-circle motions on the analog stick to work a little bit better, and do something about the fact that when you knock an enemy down you feel like you've totally wrecked the flow of combat. During climactic end-of-level brawls, you're constantly assaulted by a seemingly endless supply of enemies who constantly attack from offscreen. That's kind of an issue too.

Even with if fighting thugs, robots, and foot soldiers were actually fun, the levels would still feel like sprawling spaces with no indication of where you need to go, filled with invisible barriers and confusing glitches. Your computer-controlled partners are always getting themselves KO'ed, and you have a choice of wasting precious, health-restoring pizza to revive them or facing increasingly unfair odds as each turtle bro goes down and enemies completely mob you. You're shelled if you do and shelled if you don't.

Playing with fellow human beings makes the moment-to-moment gameplay slightly more enjoyable, but unfortunately the two-player split-screen option means that not only are you subjecting another person to a joyless and utterly bewildering experience, you're making the game's persistent technical problems even worse. Finding a group to suffer through the experience with you online is generally a preferable option. You may even be able to get someone else to do the simplistic but poorly-explained hacking mini-game so you don't have to, leaving you free to celebrate the momentary reprieve from actually having to play the game by tapping the d-pad to make the turtles dance and high-five.

There are so many things wrong here that playing the game can sometimes seem like a surreal experience. Voice actors from the cartoon ramble on and on regardless of what is or isn't happening on screen. Surprisingly catchy ninja tunes project from your speakers and reverberate through your skull. You might find yourself slipping into some sort of agonizing turtle trance as Michelangelo gives a dissertation on pizza toppings. Have you seen this part of the subway tunnels before? Are you going forwards or backwards? Would it be a good idea to just take a break from all this madness and just dance for five minutes? Out of the Shadows can take you to a dark and bewildering place from which there's seemingly no escape -- and that's only level two. It won't be long before you'll come to a crystal clear realization. This game, like its malformed heroes, is an abomination. It's best if you put down the controller and look away.

Reviewed on Microsoft Xbox 360.

Written by Justin Speer.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Release Date:
PC, PS3, PSN, XBLA, Xbox 360
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