E3 2009: Hands-on: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up - News

by Daniel Share-Strom , posted on 09 June 2009 / 3,115 Views

As an avid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, I’ve been disappointed with the... erm... ‘quality’ of most TMNT games since the Super Nintendo classic, Turtles in Time. When I heard that Ubisoft would be developing a new fighting game based on the franchise, I immediately thought of another Turtles SNES gem, Tournament Fighters. I wondered if the French studio would be able to live up to the high standards of the franchise’s sixteen-bit forebears, or if they'd be serving us up another pot of Turtle Soup.

If the two matches I got to participate in at E3 were any indication, it just might be the former!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up for the Wii is being developed by Game Arts and Team Ninja, developers of the Super Smash Bros and Dead or Alive series’. At Ubisoft’s E3 booth, Gabriel, Evan, Brett, and I had the pleasure of going a few rounds with this promising new game. With such highly-respected fighting games under the team’s belt, it’s no wonder that Smash Up is such a blast to play.

First off, this is not a traditional fighting game, and while the first glance may make it seem to be Smash Bros reskinned with Turtles characters, in practice it’s more similar to Jump Ultimate Stars on the DS. Yes, four characters can run around obstacle-laden environments, and they do indeed have double jumps and moves that allow them to gain even more height. However, the game does employ a traditional health bar system, and strong attacks won’t send characters flying off the screen (some levels don’t even have pits to fall into). Control-wise, the game does feel very much like Smash Bros. The Wii remote is held sideways, NES-style, with the D-pad for movement, the 1 and 2 buttons for heavy and quick attacks, respectively, and the B trigger for blocking. Pressing left or right while blocking performs a roll, and pressing Up and 1 at the same time does an attack that simultaneously lifts your character into the air. Holding different directions while pressing an attack button does a different attack, and pressing 1 and 2 triggers a throw. Pressing these two buttons together also activates a special move if the player has collected a special item.

The characters on offer were mostly regulars, with April being the only surprise in a cast that also included Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Shredder, and Master Splinter. All of the characters’ play styles are what you’d expect, so Mikey is fast, Donny’s got the longest range thanks to his staff, and Shredder is just a complete tank! At the start of a match each player votes on their level choice, and the one with the most votes gets played (we didn’t get to see what happens in the event of a tie). For our first match, we selected the turtles’ sewer home. Nothing fancy here—basically, just a big box to run around in, with no extra platforms or pits to fall into. In a four-player match, we seemed to just instinctively break off into twos and fight on separate sides, which was intense enough, what with the fact that taking enough hits in a row renders your character dazed and unable to move. However, it was the parts when everyone naturally came into contact with one another that Smash Up really lived up to its name. These bits feel like when characters would get in a fight in an old cartoon, where everyone just gets drawn into a big cloud of smoke with fists flying everywhere—complete, awesome chaos.

The second level we played, a waterfall area, had more interactivity. We started out on a log near the top of the falls, but as we ran, jumped, and tossed each other around, it started to crack, and we soon fell down several screens onto the real playing field. Three smaller logs were hanging by ropes at varying heights, and a bridge covered the bottom. Most of the fighting naturally gravitated toward the bridge, but this would soon cost us—with only a quick warning sign flashing across the screen, a crocodile would leap out from the waterfall in the background and gobble a random person up if they weren’t standing on one of the logs. Remember the fish in the Ice Climbers level of Smash Bros Brawl? Picture that, only more frequently, with less notice, and with the dangerous creature actually appearing on the most-used part of the level. When that warning sign appeared, our almost-Pavlovian response was to stop fighting and make a mad leap for safety, while avoiding the other guys who would prefer to see us get eaten!

The one thing I noticed that could use some tuning up before release is the blocking—it takes way too long in the middle of a tense fight for the characters to put up their defences. These guys are supposed to be ninjas, but it takes them at least half a second too long to block? You really had to see the attack coming from a mile away to have a chance at blocking.

The graphics in TMNT: Smash Up are very pretty, artistically and technically. The art style most closely resembles the recent CG movie, and Ubisoft had the foresight to give each character their own distinct color glow, as it would have otherwise been hard to distinguish between the turtles at a distance. Lots of little touches were added for series fans, such as Splinter’s meditation chamber being a central part of the background in the sewer level, and the water effects on the waterfall were quite pretty. No matter what effects the game pumped out, and no matter how fast-paced the action, the framerate seemed to move at a steady 60fps. It was difficult to get a feel for the sound in the crowded Los Angeles Convention Centre, but I could definitely make out the series’ trademark ‘thwap!’ and ‘pok!’ sounds.

Keep an eye out for Smash Up when it releases on September 22, because from the looks of things, the ‘toitles’ are coming back out of their shells.

5 Comments

hansolo14 (on 10 June 2009)

@yipee
yes but on the paper TMNT:Smash up is more simple to play than smash, BTW i hope Wii mote works well cause i dont have 4 nunchuks

yipee (on 09 June 2009)

i pray there's another control option... wii mote only was gimped in brawl

thekitchensink (on 09 June 2009)

For the record, Mikey is the best character in the TMNT universe. That is a fact, and is not open for discussion. ;-)

tolu619 (on 09 June 2009)

I used to think I was an adventure & RPG gamer.I can't believe there are so many First Person Shooters & fighting games on my wii list!SSBB,Punch out,this,Bleach,Naruto,Dragonball Z...