Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Battle Nexus Free Download
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Battle Nexus is more than just a step
backward for this series it's a step backward into a large chasm. When
Konami released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last year for consoles and
the PC, all we wanted was a spirited beat 'em up in the vein of the
classic Turtles arcade games. While Konami managed to get the genre
right, it unfortunately succeeded at little else, turning in a rather
prosaic effort that didn't have much going for it beyond its cel shaded
graphics.
While the story aspect of the last Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles 2 game wasn't a huge factor, it was at least better than what
Battle Nexus has to offer. The storyline of this game is ripped largely
out of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series' second
season, and it consists of an overarching storyline that puts the four
heroic turtles--Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael--on a
quest to rescue their master, Splinter. At the beginning, you'll have a
couple of story paths available to you, as well as a couple of locked
story paths. Each story branches out into an episodic series of
misadventures that you must play through, and some of these missions
even have multiple paths. What's weird is that there's obviously a
fairly linear plotline that the game follows, as evidenced by the way
the different animated cutscenes taken from the show play out. So, even
though you can choose from a couple of different missions, only one of
them actually starts in the proper place in the story.
Another weird
and annoying thing about Battle Nexus is its character management
system. Each time you start up the game, you'll be presented with a
character select screen for one to four players. If you're the only one
playing, you'll still have to select four characters from a pool
including the turtles themselves and side characters like Splinter and
Casey Jones. You'll be able to have only one character onscreen at a
time, but you can switch between them on the fly. The reason for this is
simple at certain times during missions, specific characters' abilities
are needed to proceed. However, this is set up in the cheapest way
possible. For example, if you get to a door that has to be opened via a
control panel, you'll have to cycle through to get to Donatello, since
he's the smartest of the group, and logically is the one who can operate
electronics. Of course, all you actually have to do is press his weak
attack button in the vicinity of the control panel, and the door
magically opens. For everyone else, it's just as simple. One guy can
move heavier blocks, another can chop through certain objects, and
that's about it. At times, you can actually circumvent these ability
specific objectives altogether. That's as much character specific action
as you're going to see in the game, which is pretty underwhelming, to
say the least.
Battle Nexus' combat is just as bad. The enemies
weren't very smart in the last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 game, and
they're just as brain dead here. Only now, some of them are proficient
at blocking, so you have to suffer through trying to beat up an enemy
who not only can't fight properly, but who also knows how to turtle
itself until you walk away for a while. Most times, grunt enemies will
just stand there, slowly walking around in a circle until you get too
close or attack. Enemies with projectile attacks will attack more often,
and are often the most difficult, mostly because the game likes to put
them together in significant numbers and tailor their attack patterns so
one will always attack right after the other. On the other hand, you'll
frequently find yourself without any enemies to beat up at all, as many
levels feature oddly vacant sections.
The game also contains an
unlockables system, in which you collect antiques throughout each
mission in an effort to unlock items in April's antiques store. Most of
the unlockables are just concept art and things of that nature, but the
one thing you can unlock that's actually pretty cool is the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. Apart from the audio being
totally different, this is the same game you came to know and love in
arcades, and, of course, it supports four players. The messed up thing,
however, is that you have to slog through most of the main story mode to
actually get to the game, which really isn't worth it. What's
interesting is that once you actually do get to it, it basically shows
you that a 15-year-old arcade port that's only a few hours long can
still be vastly superior to this mess of a game.
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