honestgamer's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan review

I'm sorry you were disappointed by this game, Jason. I had a feeling this would happen, though; the TMNT license is cursed. Nobody takes it seriously; they figure it's for kids and they'll pay any old thing you put in front of them so who cares?

One thing that really stuck out to me when I watched footage of this game is how empty the city streets are. It's supposed to be New York, right? Why are there only ninjas roaming around? Where are the bystanders, cops, etc.? I would hardly think that New York turns into a ghost town at night. It's the city that never sleeps, for crissake.

I wonder if the unpolished/unfinished nature of this game is the result of a decision to release it concurrently with the movie. I know that the game and the movie aren't directly "related", but I wonder if one of their business execs decided that it would be a good decision to try and get some additional dollars from the generated synergy. If so, it's still a bad business decision overall, as gamers are quite critical and don't like to play (or encourage others to buy) unfinished games like this.

Like you, I do suspect that it was rushed out the door to launch with the movie. The empty environments honestly didn't bother me, though. It's a cartoon/comic world, so we're used to that sort of thing. At one point, dialogue mentioned a curfew in place due to the crime wave, and one of the turtles commented that now they shouldn't have to see much of anyone but their enemies. So the developers or localization team were clearly aware of the potential issue.