Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up (2009 – Wii)

Release Date: September 22, 2009
Developer: Game Arts
Publisher: Ubisoft

In this game, you can take control of any of the TMNT foursome (Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo or Raphael) or some of their allies (April or Casey Jones). In story mode, Splinter decides to have a tournament with the winner being able to pick something from his private treasure stash. As you move ahead in the tournament, however, Shredder (as usual) shows up to put a damper on things.

This game essentially ends up being a Smash Brothers knock-off. While it’s fun to play it, you begin to just start wishing you were playing Smash Brothers instead.

There isn’t a ton of variety in the move sets and when I used different characters, I didn’t really get a feel that any of them were terribly different other than aesthetics.

The cut scenes aren’t even animated, which they could have definitely done more with. It was a perfect opportunity to tie it in to the TMNT movie with the same artwork style. (I have the review for that movie here if you want to read it)

The levels don’t seem to have a lot of punch other than the interactive environments that hurt your characters, and that was a neat addition.

Overall, the game was okay but it wasn’t good enough to be better than Smash Brothers or different enough to make me want to play it instead.

JOE Rating: ★★★

Game Trailer For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up

 

This is what I look like when I’m blogging my reviews

I just wanted to take some time, and a breather, and say that this new blog is fun and I’m enjoying writing these reviews of (so far) games, movies and books.

I truly appreciate the time everyone takes to read, like or share the reviews because I know there are a million other blogs out there that do the same thing.

I have lots more Wii game reviews coming up soon, seeing as how I let my cousin borrow my X Box 360 so he could play the new Resident Evil game. There will be vintage games (like Super Mario Brothers and Chrono Trigger) because those are all available on the Wii so HELL YEAH I’m going to be playing them.

You can also count on other movie reviews soon, including some old Sword-And-Sorcery 80’s films, some newer stuff like The Avengers and Dark Knight Rising…and some older stuff, too, like Stand By Me and Suicide Kings.

On the book end (ha!) of things, I will have a review on The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers and also Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters coming up fairly soon, too.

I plan on getting into some more comic book and graphic novel reviews as well, but I have no idea when. Music and television shows are on the list, too.

Keep on keepin’ on!

-Joe

Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (2010 – Wii)

Release Date: December 11, 2008
Developer: Eighting
Publisher: Capcom

I finally got my hands on my cousin’s Wii (insert joke here) and was the most excited about this game.

Fighting games are one of my favorite things to play, even though I’m not the best at them (except for Killer Instinct (SNES). I was pretty darn good at that one). Marvel vs Capcom is one of my favorite series and I do love me some Gatchaman (an anime superhero team from Tatsunoku) so I really had some high hopes for it.

My hopes didn’t die, at least not completely.

Originally only released in Japan due to a fall in popularity of fighting games a few years back, there was finally enough interest garnered by the community that they decided to give it a shot over here and it was a Wii exclusive and ended up being commercially successful.

The fighting system is simplistic (three buttons) and easily-accessible to noobs like myself. The graphics were decent, even though this was their first shot at rendering fully in 3D. The characters and their animations were really neat, as can be expected from these newer incarnations of the Capcom vs series.

The one thing that prevented this game from being really great was that there is no real storyline or story mode. There is an arcade mode, but there’s not a ton of replayability in that.

It’s a really fun game to play with your friends, locally, or the online variety (it has a decent online mode) but for Forever-Alone gamers like myself, the fun doesn’t last forever.

It’s definitely worth playing if you’re a fan of Tatsunoko, though, because there aren’t that many games featuring their characters. (And who doesn’t want to play as Jun, The Swan at least once? She’s hawt!)

JOE Rating: ★★★★

Game Trailer for Tatsunoko VS Capcom: Ultimate All Stars