Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

There are a couple of things you should immediately know about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. First, Leonardo leads and Donatello does machines. Also, Raphael is cool but rude, and Michelangelo is a party dude. With that out of the way, all of the turtles are back in this remake of the classic arcade game, Turtles in Time, and it's not just a retro port with some HD filters. The game has received a full-on 3D overhaul, so all of the environments, turtles, enemies, and bosses are rendered in slick 3D splendor, and the two levels we saw (Alley Cat Blues and Skull and Crossbones) looked great.

But this move into three dimensions has also brought some slight changes to the gameplay. In fact, the most noticeable difference between Turtles in Time Re-Shelled and the original, aside from the graphics, is that the turtles' (and the enemies') ability to execute attacks in a three-dimensional plane is now more pronounced. In the original game, all of the characters had sort of a contact bubble around them, so you didn't have to be on the same line as an enemy to attack him, but in Re-Shelled, this bubble doesn't exist (or it isn't necessary), so if you're standing directly below a foot soldier, you can still hit it by pressing up on the controller. It's a little difficult to explain, but fans of the original game will notice the difference.

As far as the rest of the gameplay goes, Re-Shelled has everything from the original. Leonardo and the rest of the crew still have standard attacks, one special attack, the shoulder block, and the ability to slam enemies on the ground and throw them into the screen. It's worth mentioning that we couldn't quite get the screen throw to work as easily as it does in the Super Nintendo version of the game, but that's probably because Re-Shelled is based on the arcade version.

Some of the bosses are different from those in the Super Nintendo version, and there's also one level in the Super Nintendo version that didn't appear in the arcade version (it took place inside the Technodrome). Also of note, it has yet to be determined what's going to happen with the music, whether it will be stripped from the original or remixed. At any rate, we're excited that Turtles in Time is getting revamped, and we can't wait to see how the Neon Night Riders level looks and to try out the four-player cooperative mode. Look for the game to hit Xbox Live Arcade on July 22.