Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan Tmnt mutants in manhattan platforms
Splinter taught them to be ninja teens
Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines
Raphael is cool but rude
Michelangelo is a party dude!
The international digital release of the game took place at the end of last week. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan from the Platinum Games studio, the disc release of which in Russia will take place on June 7, a week later than previously scheduled. It should be noted right away that no one worked on the project. core team the studio mentioned above, which has repeatedly proven itself to be a master of dynamic and spectacular third-person action games, and a new and relatively young team. Her creative debut was a mediocre release The Legend of Korra, and then the developers released some pretty cool action Transformers: Devastation. After such a successful release of the project, although not without its shortcomings, based on the cult franchise, they expected from the team at least an equally good game about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, no less cult childhood heroes of many of us.
But the miracle did not happen, and in today’s review I will try to convey to you why this happened and what we ultimately got under the name “Mutants in Manhattan.” The game starts out quite cheerfully, with good music and an excellent introductory video. Although no, I’m lying. It begins with a splash screen, during which the Nickelodeon inscription appears. And, probably, all fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe know that if this company touches it, nothing good should be expected. However, the very first video - and even the pre-release trailers - show us that the design of the turtles was treated with respect. Although they did not use the classic 1987 design for many fans, they did not use the indescribable horror that we were shown in the 2012 Nickelodeon reboot.
This game is based on the design adopted in the latest and still active restart of the franchise - comics from the publishing house IDW. This design is quite close to the 1987 version, but the Turtles look a little more aggressive and tougher. I would say that IDW very competently and beautifully mixed the design of the original comics and the softened version from the first animated series, to which most fans of the franchise in the post-Soviet (and not only) space are accustomed. This is the first good news that I have in my humble bag. The second one is in the game good story, which organically fits into the universe of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: well-staged plot inserts, good acting, and the hallmark humor of the series.
I don't know if this is a bug or intentional stupidity, but one story sequence in the game is repeated twice at different times. The first time it looks organic, but then it’s ridiculous and funny to see how the Turtles are again surprised by a moment that they know about. And which they seem to have already passed!..
That's where the good news ends. TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan offers players two main modes - story and multiplayer, which is also story-based, but with friends or random players online. Already from the first story mission, the player is struck by the simple game design, which lacks two key characteristics: efficiency and elegance, but the red inscription “Did you order clumsiness?!” glows across the entire screen. No, we didn't order it. But we got it. We are offered hundreds of meters of space, in which, while we are running from one mission point to another, opponents periodically appear out of thin air, just so that the player does not feel like a lonely and lost turtle in a big city.
City tasks, whether they take place on the ground or on the roofs of skyscrapers, seem to be specially scattered so that the player is once again forced to think about what they want from him and why he needs to rush 200 meters to the right, and then return to his starting position again. The red-haired and popularly beloved April O'Neil, whose image many children dreamed of in the nineties, is trying to give reasons for the throwing - if you haven't dreamed of her, then you either haven't seen TMNT, or were born a girl. There is no third option. Every now and then she informs our heroes on the radio about all sorts of acts of vandalism occurring at a distance of 200-300 meters from their shells, and asks the young tumblers to deal with the situation while she continues to hunt down the boss of the level. Because of this construction of missions, the player spends half of the time in them running from the point “. A" to point "B", rushing to a new task. The exception is missions in the sewers, there are no large spaces here and, frankly, this only plays into the hands of the project. This is the rare case when corridors are more organically gameplay than open locations.
Sometimes April's tasks are interesting - run and beat up a dozen Foot assholes, and then defuse a bunch of dynamite. But other tasks are very difficult to complete, because while you are perplexed by what is happening, the time allotted for them runs out. The most striking example: in the very first mission, stunned by impunity and their own mythical coolness, the Foot warriors attack ATMs and threaten to deprive them of their most precious thing - money. And then the voice of the red-haired miracle is heard in the speaker: “Turtles, a hundred meters from you, villains are beating up an ATM, immediately go to his aid!” I couldn't complete this mission because I laughed longer than the allotted time to protect three ATMs. No, really... saving the ATM?! Fabulous. I remember in one of the tasks TMNT: Mutant Nightmare There was a mission about rescuing my grandmother. In Manhattan, apparently, the grannies have run out and only ATMs remain.
The battles in the game are two-button - regular and strong attacks must be connected every now and then in combinations with which the brave Turtles scatter the Foot throughout the city and sewers. In particularly intense battles, players come to the rescue of ninjutsu techniques that Splinter taught to the four green heroes - they are activated by holding down the “L2” button and pressing one of the face buttons of the controller. These moves are special attacks, usually powerful or just useful, and require some time to cool down once used. What could possibly go wrong with such a standard formula? Or maybe. For example, in every battle a battle chaos will begin to happen.
The Turtles can’t move on their own two feet all the time; sometimes they can capture robots...
Since the game is initially cooperative and we have four Turtles, the developers felt that the game designers of the classic parts of the series were not very wise if they allowed players to play with only one turtle, while the rest were eating pizza behind the scenes. That's why in Mutants in Manhattan we control one Turtle, and the rest of the trio runs behind us and gets under our feet. Even if you give the AI the command “Wait,” which should mean “Stand and be afraid,” the support group will rush after the player and get involved in battles, as if trying to protect their brother. Thus creating chaos on the screen, which turns what is happening into a circus mess with an overabundance of bright special effects. On the plus side, we can note that we are allowed to switch to any of the four young pizza ninjas at any time. This is good. But the situation does not help.
Why? The fact is that in addition to strikes and all sorts of combinations, the game’s combat system provides for several defensive movements - parrying, a kind of “blindside” (as in Star Ocean: The Last Hope, when a character evades an enemy’s attack and goes behind his back), and depriving the enemy of balance. Each of these techniques must be performed with a certain degree of accuracy, which is absolutely difficult when it is not clear which of the four Turtles surrounding him the boss is aiming at. Or any other opponent. As a result, the impression is created, and it seems very true to me, that defensive techniques in the game turned out to be simply by inertia, after the adventures of Korra and the Autobots, where they were very much in the theme. In previous games, it was also possible to go through the plots in an aggressive form, attacking and not defending, without parrying. The presence of defensive capabilities made it possible to diversify battles and introduce a certain tactical element into them. Which would have worked well in TMNT if the developers had not overloaded the game with chaos-prone AI partners.
Mikey. Mikey never changes.
But despite the often drawn-out tasks and not the best game design, there are several combat sections in the game that even the chaos happening on the screen could not spoil - boss battles. They are interesting largely due to the fact that the game has simply cool bosses - there are Rocksteady, Bebop, Slash, Karai, Armaggon, Wingnut, two forms of Krang and Shredder. Each boss is unique and requires a special approach on difficulties from normal and higher. On easy, in principle, almost all enemies, except for healthy stone bumpkins with hammers and Wingnut, can simply be spammed with attacks. On normal and high, battles with them become much more difficult and even feel somewhat drawn out. Although they are quite interesting, despite the annoying cries of their comrades that they have been done bo-bo and it’s time to run to resurrect their bros. After all, after a minute or two, the bo-bo will be done to the player and the AI lads will resurrect him. Or living friends, if any.
A cooperative playthrough, be it with friends or with random players from the network, as long as there is a microphone, definitely outperforms a single-player game. At the very least, it gets rid of the idiotic behavior of an AI that is persistent and eager to find adventure. In a multiplayer game, we can explore the game location in a dense group, or scatter across different regions and complete elements of the task, looking for collectibles, or simply hunting for enemies. Here the game opens up and becomes somewhat more interesting, because in battles alone you will already need parrying, dodging, and other cunning combat techniques. Another interesting feature of the co-op - this never happened to me in a single-player game - can be noted probable occurrence help for the boss during the battle with him. For example, Rocksteady will rush to Bebop's aid. He will be weaker than his usual form, but he will drink a fair amount of blood.
Boss battles and refreshment snacks in co-op are especially good. Unfortunately, local co-op was not introduced into the game, since the game encourages it. This is a significant mistake by the developers.
The death of a character during battle is not scary either in a single-player game or in a cooperative one. When the Turtle dies, he goes to the shelter and eats pizza. During a single playthrough, the system usually switches the player to one of the remaining characters in the ranks if the player's hero has lost health. But you can switch back to it and help you eat pizza faster. IN passing together There are no switches to AIC associates. So, when playing on normal difficulty or higher, get ready to eat many slices of hot pizza! There is even a trophy associated with this - you need to enjoy a pizza feast in the shelter when your teammates on the battlefield deal the final blow to the boss. In general, the trophies here are quite interesting and just tailored for cooperative game. Which, by the way, can make even a mediocre project shine. But she can’t make it less mediocre. It's a pity.
Visually the game looks good, but the design of its most potentially interesting location, the city, leaves much to be desired. Everything here is dead, monotonous and clumsy. Better work was done on the sewers, rainy roofs of New York and the interior of the TCRI skyscraper. Cute, but nothing more. For example, in Transformers: Devastation everything was much better in this regard. Technically, the project raises almost no complaints - it rarely happens that the effects accompanying the circular animation of some opponents somehow strangely slow down, as if skipping several frames. The musical accompaniment is quite cheerful and suitable for most situations in the game, as for the voice acting - personally, I like the classic voices of the characters more, but the local actors did not get their salaries in vain. If all aspects of this project were at least at this level, we would get a confident game, perhaps even at the level of previous Transformers. However, the reality is different.
IN last years The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe was catastrophically unlucky in the gaming segment. Something more or less high-quality about turtles was last released for sale back in 2007 from Ubisoft, it was a game based on the full-length cartoon TMNT. But further efforts of French publishers and studios controlled by them turned out to be failures: they never managed to rise to the same quality level, on the contrary, each subsequent game came out worse than the previous one. Activision, which took the baton, inherited from Ubisoft not only the rights to games about turtles, but also its “streak of bad luck.”
Activision released games based on both new cartoons and new feature films. Dark slashers, semi-children's platformers, a lot of flash games about turtles and projects for mobile gadgets were released - all in vain, the games failed over and over again, even despite the enormous popularity of the new animated series about green ninjas, which airs on the Nickelodeon channel.
Now it’s the turn of comics, and this is where Activision decided to roll out the heavy artillery: Platinum Games, a recognized luminary of slasher films, took on the development. Read below about what they ended up with.
Chaos in Manhattan
The handwriting of Platinum Games is unmistakable literally from the first frames. Cartoon graphics, bright colors and an abundance of special effects are reminiscent of the recent Transformers Devastation. But if it was really interesting to play there, and the levels were simply filled with drive, then here the story gets bogged down in self-repetition, as well as in the simplest gameplay scheme, repeating from level to level...
If you decide to play Mutants in Manhattan, then it is best to do it in the company of several friends. When four players perform tasks together, the game becomes much more interesting: one defuses a bomb, while his brothers protect him from ninjas attacking from all sides; choosing tactics, the four main characters attack huge bosses as a single team - everything is cool, we won’t argue. However, this is a forbidden technique, because it is no secret that co-op can make almost any game much more interesting. Otherwise, we are dealing with a fairly average craft. However, the creators of the new gaming turtles clearly did not intend to get gamers to take their game seriously. Locations, characters, plot - everything was done in haste, obviously to be in time for the release of the film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”.
Emptiness in the city
They didn’t bring an open world this time either - the caliber of the game is not the same, not GTA or even Spider-Man. However, the levels are quite large, and each of them is either open from the very beginning or has large open areas - you can rush back and forth, in any direction, up or down. The first level sets the tone with night city streets and rooftops, along which turtles dashingly jump, fighting hordes of ninjas. And it will be nicer to see subway tunnels, sewers, a skyscraper construction site with beautiful views of the city, and much more.
Moreover, after completing the first level, access to the next five locations immediately opens. Choose what you like best, but remember that in order to fight with Krang and Shredder, who are waiting in the finale, you will still need to defeat all the enemies in the end; you won’t be able to miss anyone.
We understand that the creators of the new “game turtles” did not try to make a full-fledged city - and still the locations make a pitiful impression. No breakable items, no extra weapons to pick up on the city streets. But even in the 8-bit “Turtles” in the 90s it was possible to destroy enemies road signs, throw manhole covers at them! Here you can hit a car standing on the sidewalk as much as you like - after hundreds of hits with a pole or katanas, not a single crack will appear on its windows. For beat'em ups or slasher films, this is a huge omission.
As some kind of compensation for the empty streets, we are offered opportunities to customize turtles. Each of them has its own set of superpowers that can be upgraded as you progress - a technique that was tested in TMNT: Out of the Shadows. Over time, the heroes turn into real terminators who can deal with dozens of enemies in a matter of seconds. Another thing is that pumping, as well as various additional weapons purchased from Splinter, are not particularly required here: the enemies are very stupid and can only rush at you en masse. And if your turtle is defeated, then you shouldn’t be afraid - the hero in this case simply goes to the team’s lair, where he eats a lot of pizza, while the rest carry out the task in a truncated composition...
Don't think that the creators of the game, who brought in a writer from the original IDW comics to develop it, planned to present us with a game with interesting story. In essence, Mutants in Manhattan is just a set of missions, connected by a common story just for show. Even before you can access any of the bosses, you must not go through story missions, but simply complete a certain set of home missions at a location: defuse several bombs, “take out” a squad of ninjas beating up an ATM, and the like. It doesn’t matter, the main thing is to score a certain number of points, which opens the way to the next boss. And the level bosses, by the way, turned out to be a sight to behold.
Sometimes these are thugs, like Bebop or Rocksteady, sometimes they are fast and nimble enemies, like Karai. Each has its own flavor, each has strengths and weaknesses, and from level to level it becomes more and more difficult to fight them, which cannot be said about the ordinary “sixes” - assorted ninjas and Krang’s stone soldiers. The design of the enemies, as well as the design of the turtles themselves, are taken straight from the comics - again, a nice change after numerous games based on the animated series.
Verdict
Unexpectedly, Platinum Games released an ordinary mid-level slasher film. You can play Mutants in Manhattan and even get some pleasure from it - but this pleasure will last for the first two or three levels. Most likely, after completing these levels, you will simply put the game on the shelf, never to return to it again. And we continue to wait good game about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Final score: 4 points out of 10.
Platform: PC, PS 3, PS 4, X-360, X-One
Language: English
Minimum:
OS: Windows 10 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 / Windows Vista
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz / AMD Athlon II x2 250 3.0GHz
RAM: 1 GB RAM
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT / AMD Radeon HD 4770
DirectX: Versions 9.0c
Disk space: 7 GB
Cartoon with a view, telling about the new adventures of the legendary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the new chapter, the fighting quartet of turtles will save New York from all sorts of villains who have made their lair right in the heart of Manhattan.
The features of the game are: a plot based on mega-popular comics and cartoons, and an unusual graphic style, drawn by hand, without any hints of modernity. Players will plunge into a familiar universe and meet old friends and enemies, including the famous Shredder and Krank. As you progress, surprises await you, and at the end of the level - strong bosses.
The gameplay of the game is quite simple, not overloaded with all kinds of combo attacks and techniques. Depending on the chosen character, combat system is slightly different due to the unique capabilities of turtles:
IN single player you can easily switch between heroes and take advantage of all the advantages - skydiving, parkour, etc. The problem is that playing the single-player campaign is extremely difficult due to the dull and stupid AI - the turtles rub around you, showing no initiative and constantly getting stuck. And even the declared ability to resurrect will not help you, the bots simply will not have time to reach you, being distracted by all sorts of nonsense.
Co-op playthrough will allow you to fully use all the skills of the heroes. Only together can you activate all abilities and simultaneously “pump up” your skills with the help of special green balls. Searching for these valuable balls alone is extremely difficult.
Despite the super-popular brand, the game receives extremely low ratings from critics - stupid AI, poor balance of enemies, where everyone is quite weak, and the bosses are very difficult. In addition, the gameplay appears to be episodic, divided into arena levels.
Information about network modes:
Links:
If you grew up in the 90s, you remember well the series about the big ninja turtles. Few people back then weren’t fans of “ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, buying T-shirts with their favorite characters and filling a comic book with stickers. Naturally, such a popular franchise could not be left without video games. Almost all of them were beat "emup (brawler), in which the brave reptiles beat enemies on the way to the boss. The latest projects, unfortunately, disappointed with their unoriginality, but with the announcement TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan the situation was supposed to improve.
And all because new game about the Turtles was taken up by real experts in slasher films - Platinum Games. Not long ago they already released decent games based on Korra and Transformers. Therefore, they expected from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at least something in the spirit of previous projects. And we finally got a good deal Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles what was it like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist on Sega.
Mutants in Manhattan is a classic third-person slasher with a bunch of different enemies and big bosses (they turned out just right). To deal with them, the four use their classic weapons, to which are added gadgets such as a bomb or a rocket launcher. In addition, there are super moves that accumulate over time and can be improved with points earned. There are quite a few techniques, and some of them can only be mastered by a certain turtle. For example, Mikey can make enemies dance, making them vulnerable. Of course, there were also shurikens, perfect for destroying flying targets. And the amphibious reptiles have learned to climb walls like Spider-Man and soar over the city using a parachute.
The cooperative was not deprived of attention. You can play with friends online, which makes the process interesting. However, you won’t be able to play on one console/computer as before. And if you are not familiar with this game, you will have to run with computer partners, who, although they are actively involved in the destruction of the henchmen of Shredder and Krang, do not paint the passage. But with friends, the game is transformed and fully revealed.
Alone, unfortunately, the project gets boring after a while. Yes, there is good design and style, but technically everything looks like the previous generation, and it works Mutants in Manhattan at 30fps.
The game has many items, leveling up, and as many as four heroes. Therefore, even despite the short duration storyline, you will have something to do, replaying already familiar levels on high difficulty and breaking out to the top of the world rankings.
the main problem TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan lies in the lack of polish. The game definitely has the spark of Platinum Games, but they fell a little short here. The project has an excellent game process and fun co-op, but lacks variety and local multiplayer. However, if you miss the Turtles, Mutants in Manhattan you definitely shouldn't miss it.
Pizza eaters differ greatly from each other. Weapons (katanas, daggers, nunchucks, fighting pole), bandages, and finally, behavior - even a blind person would not confuse the carefree Michelangelo with the aggressive Raphael. But in terms of gameplay, unfortunately, there are no differences, except for the mentioned ninjutsu. I’ll say the same about the tasks that the red-haired journalist April O’Neil gives out in each chapter. The boring list includes: defusing a superbomb; deliver to the portal valuable items(sometimes literally - like a pile of gold bars); find and “clean out” the enemy’s secret lair; get important information from terminals; protect the sacred thing from vandals - a pizza truck; and the main thing is to kill everyone on the level.
The enemies are not some lively upstarts from the conventional institution of international terrorism, but primitive natives of the boarding school for twin orphans. You pull out these weeds, but they stubbornly infuriate you, endlessly reviving in between missions. From chapter to chapter there are the same steel “rats”, stone monsters, muscular machine gunners and dead ninjas from the Foot clan. Even a born accountant would get bored.
Having dealt with the whipping boys, the turtles gain access to the “boss”. These guys are familiar to every fan of the universe: Bebop, Karai, Slash, Rocksteady... They are not reborn a hundred times per fight, as in, but they have 7 life bars. The monsters throw explosives, swing a hammer in such a way that Thor would giggle ingratiatingly and be jealous in both eyes, shoot waves of bullets (hello, !)... however, there is a serious sore - predictability. Chopping most of it into shards is no more difficult than ripping open a tin can with a rolled blade. It's no surprise that Leonardo and company are making jokes all the way. It's great to be an all-powerful turtle. Hoy!
It also doesn’t shine with a modern picture, but it’s a pleasure to beat down hooligans. by today’s standards, he’s generally a fearsome man, but the assault there still takes your breath away. Even against the backdrop of the new one, it’s a celebration of life, especially in the co-op. Well, at least the developers didn’t forget about playing together... After all, AI partners are a natural suicide squad. They fail stealth missions, use special techniques at random... It’s much more interesting to play with “live” teammates. But why only online? Where is the local “co-op”? It is unlikely that you will be able to persuade a friend to throw out more than a thousand rubles on a checkpoint fight. Unless he's a turtle fan, of course.
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The turtles ate little porridge. Instead of an exciting retro adventure, there is a monotonous action movie that stubbornly squints as “daring and youthful.” The latest releases are one worse than the other. And if replaying the same game with all its shortcomings is a fun activity, then in
