Story
There isn’t much by way of story in TMNT: Turtles in Time. Much like the cartoon, that villainous Shredder is up to no good. He and Krang (You remember him, the awkward looking brain in the belly of a robot that looks like a WWF reject) have stolen the Statue of Liberty! Once you get past any possible motivation the two could have for wanting this statue, our heroes in a half shell are off to save the day. Just when the turtles get close to finally apprehending Shredder, he opens a portal and sends them flying through time.
Each stage from here on is themed with a different period in time. From dinosaurs to cowboys, the turtles progress through time, eventually arriving in the distant future to do battle with our villains and attempt to reclaim the stolen statue.
Overall, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. Why do the rock men on the pirate ship have laser guns? Who knows? The story in this game is a throw away, giving the players an excuse to progress the levels. However, it doesn’t do much to bring you into the gameplay.
Story: 3/10

Gameplay
TMNT: Turtles in Time’s gameplay is really quite simple. You guide your favorite renaissance named turtle (you get to choose between the four) to the right of the level, while mashing on the X button to attack hordes of Foot Soldiers. The Y button is for special attacks, which don’t actually do much different than the non-special attack. You can jump and pick up pizza along the way to fill back the health bar, but that’s about it.The enemies are varied by different colored Foot, each one usually having a special weapon or attack they’ll use to try and make a soup out of you. But they all just kinda stupidly come at you as you whack away at them with your shelled reptile’s weapon of choice. At the end of each stage, you get to fight a boss made famous by the cartoon series, seemingly leaving nobody out (Toka and Razor are cool and all, but seriously, where are Bebop and Rocksteady?). The bosses are hard, and not in a sense of being challenging. They are cheap, constantly coming at you with attacks that are difficult to avoid.
TMNT: Turtles in Time features single player and multiplayer modes. Single player is hardly any fun at all. If your idea of fun is holding right on the analog stick and mashing the X button, than have at it. Multiplayer is more fun, simply because you get to play with some friends. The enjoyment of everyone being their favorite turtle and kicking some Foot Soldier butt as a team really makes the experience here. Luckily the game supports multiplayer over X-Box Live, so it’s easy to find others who want to kick some shell.
Overall, the game is fun, for a while. Taking about an hour to run through the whole thing, it’s a bit too short. But it’s nice if you want a quick distraction. The difficulty can be a bit much at times (especially with those cheap bosses), which stems from the games design to suck the quarters from the pockets of children. However, even with friends, there isn’t much replayablility, and an hour long game can only be fun for so long…
Gameplay: 6/10

Presentation
The presentation in TMNT: Turtles in Time is what the Re-Shelled is added to the title for. The graphics are actually pretty good, updated in 3D. They remind me of the new anime inspired TV series, and I’m sure that was intended to capture the interest of the newest generation of turtle fans. Everything looks great, and the animations are actually pretty solid. The only complaint here is that sometimes the traps throughout the levels can be a bit difficult to see.The sound is updated as well. The classic music has been redone, and sounds pretty good. It still feels like that of the original, only pumping through modern speakers with digital sound. The sound effects are kept mostly the same, with odd spongy effects emerging upon every strike. The worst part is the voices. They are accurate to how the turtles sound, but they can get really repetitive. If I hear the phrase “My toes, my toes!” one more time, I’m gonna side with Shredder and steal a statue myself.
The game is Re-Shelled. I have no doubts about that. But was it really necessary? The new graphics look great, but the sound could have used more work. The changes don’t add much to the gameplay, and overall it seems more like a gimmick to re-release an old classic. Why they just didn’t port the classic game onto X-Box Live Arcade, I’ll never know.
Presentation: 6/10

Summary
The classic gameplay is all here. The story is tacked on to give it some tie to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it just doesn’t make any sense. The new graphics and sound aren’t needed, and it simply doesn’t add enough to make this game worthwhile. If you are a die-hard fan of the game, or Ninja Turtles in general, it’s worth checking out. But that feeling of nostalgia will fade in about an hour, and then you’ll wonder what to do with it. If you’ve never played the game, or don’t know Leonardo from Raphael, than you are better off leaving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled in the sewer where it belongs.Final Score: 5/10
(Average of Story, Gameplay, and Presentation)
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