E3 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled
By Shaun Hatton - June 2nd, 2009
With every gaming site going out of its way to cover E3, I figure that many of you are probably checking out those bigger networks for information. Therefore instead of mildly re-capping what we have all seen in the press conferences today and yesterday, I thought I might spend some time to write about a game that hasn’t gotten attention in the press conferences but is one I’m looking forward to.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled will be made available over Xbox LIVE Arcade on July 22, with a PlayStation Network version dropping later in the year.
You might remember the previous home console version of this game on the Super Nintendo. In fact, it’s a game I still sometimes lament not owning. In the days of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, I rented Turtles in Time no less than three, but no more than eight times. The exact number is something I have no recollection of, but I do distinctly recall finishing the game in one sitting every time I rented it.
What kept me coming back to it? Mostly, it was the fact that I really loved TMNT. I loved it to the point that it was detrimental to my social development as a teenager. While classmates were busy checking out each other, I was busy fantasizing about being an actual ninja. I even had outfits that I would wear and practice my Tae Kwon-Do in. I still remember every lyric to the song “Turtle Power” by the somewhat pansy rap crew Partners in Kryme.
I’ve grown up since those early days of Turtle Fandom, and I’ve fallen out of touch with where the franchise was headed in its many incarnations since the 1980s cartoon. But I still hold a fond emotional attachment to them, if only on a superficial level. When news of this XBLA re-vamp of the game first surfaced on the Ninja Pizza blog, the blurry shots of gameplay were enough to make me extremely excited about the possibility of this game actually existing. Now that Ubisoft has confirmed it, I’m ecstatic.
It’s been years since I last played Turtles in Time, and since I never did play its arcade equivalent, I’m looking forward to shelling out the ninja action with three friends crammed into my living room. The game was Konami’s best-selling arcade title when it debuted in 1991, and I’m curious to see how well it does when it hits the download services this year.
In the meantime, the game is touring via the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Bus national tour, which so far is only hitting ten cities in the US. If anyone needs me for the rest of the day, I’ll be playing the existing TMNT game on XBLA. Cowabunga!
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It was always my favorite Ninja Turtles game (with the NES version of TMNT II: the arcade game being a close second) so I am hella excited about this one. I just wish they would offer a classic graphics mode.
dude I remember playing the arcade version once. it was awesome. I can’t wait to get this one back. I would actually buy four controllers just to play this. :sigh: this is gonna set my collection back so many months when it comes out.
Wow, this game looks awesome. Hello childhood. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better gaming rendition of the Turtles themselves either. Raphael rules!
“Heroes on the half-shell,
They’re on a mission;
When they’re in battle got the enemy wishin’
That they stayed at home instead of fighting,
These ninja masters with moves like lightning!”
I used to LOVE this game. And the graphics are pretty cool in this update.
Game looks GREAT in motion too. Better than the shots would imply.
I find th case with screenshots is that they typically don’t really convey how nice the game in motion is. A graphics option to toggle between original and updated (like with R-Type Dimensions) would be rad.