Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee

I had my hopes up for this game. I LOVED this game as a kid. My memories of this game are as fond as any other game that I have ever played. It didn’t hurt that the Turtles were icons to other people in my generation. In a lot of way the toys were to us as Star Wars toys were to our older siblings. Don’t get me wrong; I still loved Star Wars and had tons and tons of the toys, but most of them were hand me downs from my brother and sister. The Turtles were my toys, and between my friends and me, we had almost all of them. One of my friends was that kid who had all of the toys. He had Fortress Maximus AND Rodimus Prime. He also had a Technodrome.

Fast forward to 2009– my friend has the Technodrome, and this game doesn’t.

WHAT?! NO TECHNODROME! WTF MY BFF JILL! That’s right. This game has one serious flaw that is impossible to overlook: there are levels missing from the game. Remember the whole Technodrome levels and Shredder sending you back in time through the Dimension X viewing screen? That doesn’t happen here. You get sent back in time right after the Alien rip off creatures fly at you in the sewer, right at the time of the Rat King boss fight. Oh, yeah, no Rat King either. He isn’t in the game. Neither are Beepop and Rocksteady. During the pirate ship level, you fight The Secret of the Ooze villians, Tokka and Rahzar. I’m sorry, but I am a Turtles purist and the target audience for this game. I don’t fundementally accept replacing Beebop and Rocksteady with those two. It’s like Greedo shooting first.

See, the fact that they didn’t do some levels really pisses me off. Frankly, the rest of the game is such a fun update that I really, really wanted those missing levels. It would have been a spot-on remake that would have set my Xbox ablaze with awesomeness. I would’ve tracked down some Jolt Cola and made some popcorn, and that would’ve been my Saturday nights for the last three weeks.

(Side note: I really have a boring life and don’t do much on the weekends.)

So as a review of the game, it’s really impossible to separate my memories from this remake. As soon as it started, everything came back to me. All the moves, secrets on how to use the pizza’s effectively. Everything. The game shines here because it is so faithful to the source material that it’s like putting on your favorite shirt and it still fitting. It even has that clearly California sounding voice saying the the level titles. I laughed like a school girl when he went “Big Apple 3AM.” The game feels great while playing it. The 3D design works really well, and the Turtles look fantastic.

Seriously, I really want to love this game. Just lap it all up and snuggle with it. I just can’t get past the missing levels. I was looking forward to seeing a 3D-rendered Technodrome. And it’s not there.

My final verdict? For 800 points its a quick awesome game that is a ton of fun to play with your friends or make new ones. Thank god they didn’t charge 1200 points because I would be pissed and not just disappointed. It all comes down to whether or not you played and loved the original game. If you did, then you will have a grand old time playing the game. If you have an affection for Ninja Turtles, then you will enjoy this as well. However, if you were looking for a straight-up 3D remake of a classic (just like Bionic Commando) then you will be disappointed and maybe should stay away. If you don’t like Beat ‘Em Ups or hate the Turtles, then you should stay far, far away.

P.S. Did anyone else know that the creator of Two and a Half Men (HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SHOW, NOT FUNNY) and The Big Bang Theory (FANTASTIC SHOW, VERY FUNNY) Chuck Lorre was the composer for the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon?

-Lance