TMNT: The Power of 4

TMNT: The Power of 4 is a mobile phone game produced by uclick and developed by Overloaded, released on March 1, 2007. The game is based on the 2007 film TMNT. It is an arcade game, which combines action-adventure and racing levels. Like most big movie titles, a mobile phone tie-in was developed for the TMNT movie and was available on all Symbian phones a few weeks prior to the release of the console video game and the movie. Based very loosely on the events on the film, Power of 4 consists of mixture of platforming stages and high speed chase sequences. The platforming stages are heavily influenced by the old Shinobi games, featuring a lower plane and upper plane which the turtles can jump onto, and crates that can be either smashed or used for cover from gun-wielding maniacs and later sword-wielding Foot. There are also some roadside objects which can be used to your advantage like a block of logs which rolls down over any enemy which stands in the way. The Turtles are controlled by the surrounding buttons 4 and 6, while 2 acts as a jump and 8 crouches down. The 5 button will attack. At certain points, there are also other objectives such as protecting April from being hurt in order to complete the mission. The racing stages are overhead high speed stages where the turtle van is being chased by the prehistoric mythical creature seen in the film along with other baddies. The goal of these stages is to spill oil onto the street to keep the opposing force at a distance. 4 and 6 steer the van in different directions. These two types of stages take turns between levels, but neither works very well, mostly due to absolutely disastrous controls - a common fault of most Symbian-based cell phone games. The whole game runs at grandpa speed, and there is such a huge delay between the buttons being pressed and the actual action taking place that you might as well just imagine the game in your head and have the game be responsive there, because that is the only way you're gonna have any fun with Power of 4. There are so many occasions where the turtle will just simply not respond or do something entirely different, either due to the game being poorly coded or because your fingers are too fat to dial the phone. Jumps can only be performed straight up, and while you can walk while in a crouch position, the turtle moves even slower then. The worst part is when the mission turns into an escort mission, where April will just simply walk into the line of fire while you frantically try to dial Satan's number to ask to be spared from playing this game further. The only parts of the game that can be considered somewhat enjoyable are the driving stages due to the fact that they don't involve so much intricate controlling. It's a short-lived feeling of fun, however, as there is only so much driving to be done before the sidescrolling part returns. The graphics deserve some praise and are actually very impressive considering the platform, but there's very little animation in the overall game.