Before I go into my scathing critique of TMNT: Arcade Attack, I should preface that I my once beloved Turtles were already on a bad track this year. I remember being so hyped for TMNT: Smash Up! on the Wii, only to have it be one of the worst games I’ve ever played on the system. I really wanted it to be good. I tried finding some good in that game, and any essence of good was incredibly squandered. That being said, when I heard about TMNT: Arcade Attack, I was practically giddy. A throwback to the classic TMNT beat-em-ups. I went into this game with a very positive attitude. I really wanted it to be good.

Avoid like the plague

I thought that in order to make this review go down easier, I’d start with what’s good. The visuals are very inspired. At the start and end of every level, cutscenes are rendered as comic book panels, and are in a very appropriate neo-noir style black and white. This was one of the charms Smash Up! had as well. Instead of just the usual pizza to heal your health, scattered across levels you’ll also find little boxes of Chinese take-out, which looked a lot like Lo-Mein. This should be especially noted, because in the classic TMNT comic, the turtles were fans of Chinese food, not pizza. Go figure.

The usual characters are back, and relatively unchanged. The turtles, Master Splinter, the Foot Clan, and of course, the TMNT’s answer to Bowser, Shredder. The visuals, the presentation is spot on. That is, except for the music. For some reason, the original theme song is missing. All of the catchy surf rock tunes are absent, in exchange for a more gut-bucket rock and roll sound, with power chords a plenty. Trading in the established music genre for the turtles makes as much sense to me as trading in the lone Masato Nakamura (Composer for Sonic 1 and 2’s music) with Crush 40 (womanish “rock” band responsible for the current state of Sonic music, and other miscellaneous travesties).

Avoid this too.

I know that pointing out a beat-em-up’s gameplay is repetitive is an incredibly trite argument. However, I can find no other words, other than perhaps, annoying. The backrounds were all so lifeless. The classic TMNT arcade games were easily described in one word: LOUD. Things kept happening. Enemies kept flying at you, and when they weren’t, there were cars zooming by the backround, or at the very least a scenic city view to look at.

I have to give Ubisoft credit for what they were trying to do with the DS’s hardware. After killing every other enemy, the game will zoom in and you will see the enemy fall in slow motion. I assume they believed it would look cool. It doesn’t. It looks silly, and a little sad. It was forced, as if Ubisoft was yelling “We can be cool too guys! Look! Like The Matrix!” And it happens to often. At first, it was silly, then it was annoying, then I had to turn off the game in the middle of a level and contemplate whether I should invest more time into the game.

The Co-Op mode doesn’t fair much better. I bought this game just to play with friends on the very user friendly multiplayer mode, but usually, if the single player game is shallow, the two-player game won’t be any less painful. At least with the two player mode, you’ll have someone suffering along side you

The Awesome

-Comic Book Cutscenes

-Turtles relatively unchanged, four players give a little variety

The Not So Awesome

-Shallow gameplay

-Poorly executed “Matrix Falls”

-Surf Music is absent

-Squandered Level design

Verdict

I assume Ubisoft named this game “Arcade Attack” in attempts to make it some kind of a throwback to the classic TMNT arcade games we all know and love. Unfortunately, they took too many liberties, and cut too many corners, leaving us with a cold and lifeless game. If I had played Arcade Attack on an actual Arcade machine, I would have to kindly ask the machine for my quarters back.

Score: 5/10

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