WEBVTT 00:01.261 --> 00:27.332 I'm SP from Legends of S.H.I.E.L.D., a show about the general Marvel comic universe, part of the Guinea Geek Network, just like the show you're checking out now. Shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find other hilarious and fun geeky shows at guineageeknetwork.com. Art, comedy, pop culture, and much more. 00:27.868 --> 01:32.791 You're listening to ACPN. And welcome to PlayComics, where once again we're looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. And today we are jumping back into the sewers, which sounds really weird to me because that's like the past 2 or 3 episodes I've recorded, but they probably weren't put out that way. I don't know. How does time work? How does editing work? How does anything work? 01:32.791 --> 01:35.148 Who knows? Sewers are popular in media. 01:35.148 --> 01:45.187 There's another voice, which I'm sure comes as a big shock to everybody here because I don't do this show by myself anymore. Today I have Jeremy Powers here. Jeremy, how are you today? 01:45.187 --> 01:46.085 Doing good. 01:46.133 --> 01:46.566 How about yourself? 01:46.566 --> 02:05.578 I am good. I'm excited. We've been getting this one set up for a good while, and I know there's good reasons for that that we'll get into on why it took so long to get it recorded. But we just have to know first, what was it that made this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game jump out to you when you looked at the whole list of things that you could come on the show for? 02:05.578 --> 02:38.906 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a series since I was a little kid that I've been into. We're talking like from the late '80s when it first started kicking in and going from there. And anything Ninja Turtles, I love talking about. Like, it's always been something I've loved. So as soon as I saw this pop up, I was like, nope, I've played that back in the day. I will play it again. I would love to talk about it. I'm a fan of the movie it's tied to. So there's a relation between the comics, the movies, the game, the movies to the movies like that. There's so many things we can have fun kind of poking at with this one. It's just, it's a feature-rich field. 02:38.906 --> 03:04.051 One of the things I've really come to appreciate about Turtle stuff is that they always seem to know, like, you have your fans that are going to have been there for a while. You go in there, you know, you're going to keep them around for the nostalgia. But they're getting new fans in as well. So this is one of the few franchises that I've found that can really, really well cater to fans across that entire spectrum. 03:04.051 --> 03:22.293 It's always been a good one because just like some of my other favorite mediums like Transformers and things like that, you've got different continuities and different places they kind of reboot or restart. And people can jump in at different ones and have different takes on it. And it's its own genre, basically, of stories that you can tell, which is great. 03:22.293 --> 03:33.460 But unlike any Transformers that I've seen, Turtles seems to actively go in and bring back those older ones. And I'm sure somebody's going to tell me that that happened in Transformers too. I just have no idea. 03:33.470 --> 03:39.070 I'm not a huge Transformers fan. It has, but we'll skip that. We don't want me tangenting off on Transformers yet. 03:39.070 --> 03:41.370 We'll save that for a Transformers episode. 03:41.370 --> 03:43.760 Oh, I can do that. I have almost every one of those games too. 03:43.760 --> 04:02.561 Yes, we'll do it. But as far as Turtles goes, they make me feel old, but also not because they're able to reinvent themselves all over again. It can make me feel like a kid again every time I see a new Turtles thing. And then I remember that they're almost 40 years old, which means I'm almost 40 years old. And that's disgusting. 04:02.561 --> 04:04.484 I'm almost 50 years old, so— 04:04.484 --> 04:08.011 Well, that is equally as disgusting for all the same reasons. 04:08.011 --> 04:27.985 Ninja Turtles actually kind of brings me back to my childhood for a lot of stuff. So I actually feel younger just kind of enjoying it and still having those moments of, you know, like we rewatched the movie last night, my wife and I, and I could just sit there and enjoy it and remember things. And it's, it's always been something good with me. Like I have fun with the nostalgia and the memories attached to a lot of it in a good way. So— 04:27.985 --> 04:41.386 No, When this movie came out, I was in college. So my wife and I went to see it because she is as much of a childish nerd as I am. And there was hardly anybody in the theater. And I have no idea why, but we really enjoyed it. 04:41.386 --> 05:04.045 I barely remember. I know we saw it in theaters at least once because this was back in, I think, 2006. So we had a lot going on back then. But I remember specifically getting it for my home release as one of the few HD DVDs that I still own. I went all in on that side with the Xbox 360. It was hilarious. Well, nobody's perfect, but I did eventually get it on Blu-ray. 05:04.093 --> 05:38.257 So this is a movie that I hadn't seen for a very, very long time until I watched it again, probably way too quickly getting ready for this. And one other thing that I really appreciate about Turtles is that they're not coming in and just telling the same story every time they make a movie. You might have the same enemies with things. You might have some of the same story beats. But you're getting an original story every time you go through it, at least as far as the movies go. I'm sure that they've repeated stuff in the— I don't know how many different versions of the TV show. 05:38.257 --> 05:55.072 Even with a lot of that, there's little nuances and changes like on what they're basing it from, what part of the lore they're taking it, or if they're going in new directions, which they've done in some really fun ways over the different series over the years. This one included with how it sits in with the live-action movies more than anything else. 05:55.072 --> 06:02.806 I still have not seen the Michael Bay live-action movies. you want to call them that. But those older ones, oh, I love those so much. 06:02.806 --> 06:21.564 I will, I will give some credit. There are fun parts of the first one. I mean, it's not a great movie, but it's fun to at least watch some good fights. The second movie I feel is better because it kind of just went, hey, we're basically a live-action version of a cartoon episode, and they ran with it. And it's more fun to kind of watch that one. But that's about all the credit I can give those 2 movies. 06:21.564 --> 06:29.721 And for anybody who wants to come yell at me about not having seen those, There's just way too many things that everybody has to see. So I have to sacrifice some things. 06:29.721 --> 06:30.283 Very true. 06:30.283 --> 06:33.814 And at this point, I'm sure there's a movie tie-in game. So I'm just waiting until that happens. 06:33.814 --> 06:41.648 I, I don't remember if that one had one that was beyond like cell phone games. If Michael Bay's not big on doing tie-ins, we'll have to see. 06:41.648 --> 06:46.287 I might be safe then. And then I can just watch it on my own for fun and not have to take notes or anything. 06:46.287 --> 06:54.392 No, no, no weight around your neck pulling you down. You can just watch it freely and start and stop whenever you want and not even have to admit to people. that, hey, I've watched these. 06:54.392 --> 07:01.221 The worst part is I do own them, but I grabbed them out of the flea market for like a dollar. So not a huge investment. 07:01.221 --> 07:02.023 Yeah, it's not bad. 07:02.023 --> 07:03.610 This movie though, I really love it. 07:03.610 --> 07:28.841 I do too. I didn't know when you wanted to kind of talk about the history of it, but just the connections with it. They're both very vague on how it connects to things and also very explicit in other ways that people, if you're a fan of the live-action series from the early '90s and kind of through that era, those 3 that shows connections to it both in dialogue and that you see while also being just vague enough to stay away from it. 07:28.841 --> 07:40.751 I completely missed all of that because I've always been like a— like, I like Turtles, but not super dig into the lore of it. So like, what things are they hiding in there? 07:40.751 --> 08:41.856 There's like little references of like they're talking about, you know, how they moved on and they haven't been actively fighting crime since they defeated the Shredder and he died. You know, they mentioned that when they're talking to Karai, which is, you know, she's related to him taking over the Foot. but it's right at the end of the movie when they're putting Winter's helmet on the shelf with Splinter. He puts it right next to the actual live-action movie Shredder's helmet from the first film. Then you see the ancient Japanese armor and the staff that led to time travel from the third one. You see the TCRI broken canister from the second film that's there. So they have a memento wall of the things they've done. I think there's some other stuff there too. But those directly point back to the live-action films as being part of their continuity without verbally clearly saying like, oh, do you remember when we did this? The only time that came up was them talking about Shredder being dead because he did technically die after the second film. Well, they thought they killed him the first time, then he came back and they killed him again. 08:41.856 --> 08:52.808 That's such a cool way to do it. You know, not shoving it down people's throats, not getting that stupid like, oh, I'm here. Making a reference for all the big old fanboys. 08:52.808 --> 09:53.032 Well, this was kind of an interesting experiment when they made this movie because this was earlier. 2006 was still kind of early in the all-CG films, which I have to say the art style and stuff for this one held up really well. Like it's got a cartoony feel to it, but it still looks good. I've seen some little details while watching it, which are really funny, but it holds up and you get everything. But they were trying to actually go a darker, more realistic style without being real from like getting the Jim Henson Company to do the suits and get the live-action people in there and kind of connect to it. But they went all out with that with like an amazing voice cast that I forgot about some of them until we were watching it. So this is a star-studded film that really tried to kind of continue that series. And sadly didn't really catch on. And that's when shortly thereafter we had some of the reboots or new takes on Ninja Turtles that had happened, which that wasn't even the first time that had occurred. 09:53.032 --> 10:01.676 Yeah, it seems like Turtles is getting rebooted basically when somebody starts kindergarten and then when they graduate elementary school, Turtles gets rebooted again. 10:01.676 --> 10:48.673 It seems that way. A lot of it comes down to the fact that Ninja Turtles have kind of passed hands for who owns the rights to them. After— what was it? Baird and— yeah, the 2 original guys, one of them retired and signed off on it, and then they kind of sold Ninja Turtles over. And eventually, you know, that led to the live action, some of the other stuff. Nickelodeon eventually got a hold of it, Viacom, and then they did it and it just kind of passed around. And that usually would coincide with a reboot or retell of it. Saban was trying to mess with it for a while when they had some of the live action stuff, which is how you got Ninja Turtles crossing over with Power Rangers at one point with those ridiculous suits. So it's, it's got a history. Like I said, we talked about earlier, you can pick one of those and kind of jump in, and there's always different stories that it tells that you can just kind of go through all of it. 10:48.673 --> 10:56.935 And it's been doing that with the comics as well. You know, Mirage has had them, Image has had them, IDW has had them. So they've kind of been all over the place. 10:56.935 --> 12:18.758 Because this film was intended to be more of a reference to, or taking it back to the earlier comics, which Ninja Turtles, when it first came out, uh, was famously a Daredevil pun for when it was made. The accident that made Matt Murdock into Daredevil was supposed to be the same toxic goo that got in the sewer that made the Ninja Turtles. And then the whole fact that they're fighting the Foot is a play on the fact that Daredevil fights the Hand. That's supposed to be the other end of the body. His master— Daredevil's master was named Stick. So of course, they had Splinter. And it was always kind of a joke, but also very violent originally. Like, they were— it was not uncommon for them to kill somebody to, you know, to do these things. And they were not colorized. It was all in black and white. They had— you could tell them by their weapons and how they acted, but there was no color coordination. That all came about with the cartoon series back in the early '90s when that started. So this movie is trying to go back to a little bit of a darker side of it. And I watched some of the behind the scenes and interviews about it where they actually got like Hong Kong fight choreographers to run how the fights would work, which is why they're so much more active in this one. There's a little bit of cursing. There's a little bit of blood. Uh, you know, you've got people getting seriously hurt, kind of going back and forth because they wanted to make it a little more as that comic. Yet the art style kind of still led it to being a kid's thing. So I wonder if that kind of led to some confusion with viewers. 12:18.758 --> 12:26.250 Yeah. For anybody who hasn't seen this art style for anything, it is more or less Zelda Wind Waker. 12:26.250 --> 13:00.009 I don't, I don't think it's quite that bad, but because it's not direct cel-shaded, but it is kind of, it's very much the early 2000s 3D animation. Especially with the characters where they have that cartoon style. I think the later Nickelodeon cartoon kind of played off of it a little bit, but they gave them a little bit more of a curve to them and differentiated the turtles a little bit more in some fun ways. But it, like I said, it handled, handled pretty well and it's aged fairly well. I think maybe some water effects look a little rough, but we watched it and weren't sitting there broken by like, oh, this, this looks old. It actually held up nicely. 13:00.298 --> 13:03.520 Throughout all of this, has your favorite turtle always been the same? 13:03.520 --> 13:07.816 Oh yeah, definitely. There is one and only for me, and that is Donatello, without a doubt. 13:07.816 --> 13:09.179 Is it because he has a big stick? 13:09.179 --> 13:23.094 No, because he's, he's the engineer. That's what I am. I'm a tinkerer and I build things and work on things. And ironically, my wife, we've been married for 26 years, her favorite color is purple. So that was kind of a fun convenience or coincidence when we got married. 13:23.094 --> 13:26.123 So do you two have to fight over who gets the Donatello stuff? 13:26.506 --> 13:37.189 No, she's more of a Raphael and Leonardo-ish. She's the one with an actual black belt, so she gets to pick those. She is pretty good with the sais. She actually does like using those. 13:37.608 --> 13:44.369 Oh, we're going to try to figure out how badly we would both hurt ourselves if we tried to use sais. Well, I dropped some promos for a few other shows. 13:50.430 --> 14:48.852 Behold, comic book adaptations. Yes, from the biggest blockbuster movie to the latest Netflix drama, it seems like anything that's worth its weight in back issues these days is based on a comic book. But all that variety can get a little overwhelming, right? So how do you tell the good from the bad? The DC from the D-minus? The MCU from the just PU? Well, that's where Behold comes in. I'm Andrew, and joined by my co-hosts Rob and Mick, we try to answer once and for all, what is the best comic book adaptation? Yes, be it movie or TV show, we'll watch it and rank it until we have our definitive number 1. Tune in every fortnight and find out where your favourite ranks, which shows are worth the investment, and just exactly how many movies based on comics there really are. That's Behold! B-E-H-O-L-D exclamation mark Available on iTunes, Spotify, and all other good podcast apps. 14:48.852 --> 15:01.455 Hey, welcome to The Last Comic Shop Podcast! A comic book podcast that actually talks about comics. 15:01.455 --> 15:05.066 Yep, each week we open the shop up and read and discuss a comic. 15:05.066 --> 15:10.859 Sometimes we pair that up with comic book movies or TV shows. Or not. Lots of times it's just comic books. 15:11.333 --> 15:12.040 And sound effects. 15:12.040 --> 15:23.404 Oh yes, definitely lots of sound effects. So tune in on all the major podcasting platforms to The Last Comic Shop Podcast, or check out our library of evergreen shows at www.lastcomicshopodcast.com. 15:23.404 --> 16:02.128 Those are some great things to check out, but first let's finish up here. Uh, so Jeremy, what is bringing us together here is this 2007 2007 release, TMNT, made by Ubisoft, developed by Flavors of Ubisoft, published by Ubisoft. You'll notice that Ubisoft is not Konami. This is the first Turtles game that is not Konami. So yeah, we'll, we'll see how they hold up with that. This one came out for the PS2, the GameCube, the 360, the Wii, the DS, the PSP. That's really all we care about here mostly, but it was also on computers. 16:02.980 --> 16:04.025 It was also on Game Boy Advance. 16:04.025 --> 16:09.648 I always forget that it was on Game Boy Advance. Those are those things crossover weird. It shouldn't be. 16:09.648 --> 16:17.506 It looked like a fun beat 'em up. Like a— that's actually the most Konami-looking version I could find was the beat 'em up. 16:17.506 --> 16:30.915 Despite this being a movie tie-in game though, it is not one that just where you go and play the movie, which I really appreciate. This is going and filling in What are people doing during the movie when you don't see them? 16:30.915 --> 17:11.028 Yeah, they— I was playing through the whole thing and realizing what, like, certain statements from the movie they kind of fleshed out into entire levels. And my favorite part of it is the fact that, you know, in the movie when Leonardo comes back, Splinter just gives him this medallion and nothing is ever said about it. It's just like a congratulations, you're back. And the game is like, oh no, no, we have to have a whole set of missions where you go into the jungle and you find this and it gives you the ability to teleport through walls. And I'm like, wait, what? And they keep that going throughout the game. Leonardo is like the only one who can just teleport through walls sometimes because it's never brought up in the movie whatsoever. And it's the most— I think that's the most random extra thing that was added. 17:11.028 --> 17:51.280 This game gets a really, really weird thing going where most of the time you're playing as a certain turtle on the levels. And if you just told me that, then I would think, man, that sounds like a horrible Turtles game because the whole point is that they're all working together. as a team and everything because they're brothers, but they're doing it in a way like where they're telling each other the story of what happened while they were in these levels and everything. So it works because one of the things the brothers would also do is, hey, here's this thing that I was doing and I'm totally not embellishing any of it at all and telling you that there were 300 bad guys I had to beat up when there were only 2 of them. 17:51.280 --> 18:15.215 Yeah, there's a lot of weird storytelling and kind of filling in the gaps. Um, in the very beginning of the movie, you see little clips of what they've been up to, and this game makes those into entire levels spreading it out. Except for Donatello. All his whole thing was he was doing tech support online, and I don't think that's ever even mentioned once in the game. He just does some investigation and that's it. Like, they just completely left the tech support out. 18:15.215 --> 18:16.708 Tech support the video game would suck. 18:16.708 --> 18:21.667 Oh, well, nowadays it would be like some kind of puzzle or something you would solve. Like, that would at least be interesting. 18:21.667 --> 18:23.994 Yeah, now, but 2007? 18:23.994 --> 18:25.872 Maybe memory card management. I don't know. 18:25.872 --> 18:27.076 Oh, that's a good point. 18:27.076 --> 18:33.827 That would have been a fun little side thing. Yeah. That'd have been a great joke. If your memory card's full, you have to talk with Donnie while you're clearing it out. 18:33.827 --> 18:43.124 I think one of my favorite things is watching Michelangelo run around dressed up as a turtle, not having to wear a full costume because he just is a turtle. 18:43.124 --> 18:43.509 Yep. 18:44.855 --> 19:41.697 And there's some of the unlockables where you can get the different big head modes that are kind of like that, but just running around with his, trying to get caught up with Donatello because Donatello doing this investigation has run off with the car. And it's interesting how they designed the first half of the game where it's basically trial runs for everything. And you get from point A to point B, collecting all the coins, beating the enemies as best you can in a certain amount of time to get a ranking. And it's, it's just like one of those runners for a while. Got to go through that for a bit before you get to the point you were talking about where they actually start working together. And I thought that was absolutely hilarious because once you get to that point, if you don't play it well enough, some of the turtles will temporarily quit and just leave, which is another joke reference from Raphael, who in multiple movies and once again in this one just decides, oh, I quit, I'm going. And he just leaves for a while, which causes problems, and they can do that mid-level. You have to earn them back by playing better. It's kind of put Raphael's, uh, short temper on everybody. 19:41.697 --> 19:46.474 They should have been doing better then, and because if they were doing better, he wouldn't have to leave. 19:46.474 --> 20:34.570 Yeah, the combat, uh, the combat is definitely trying. Uh, it, it's one of those early ones, like, I really wish this would have had a better control over who you could target and fight because they have the whole system where You have to defeat 10 enemies in a row without ever getting hit in order to get some of the special attacks, which burn through really fast. But they are really good about those cheap shots where the camera isn't turned the right way and they'll just come up and poke you really fast and all your progress goes away. It took me a while. I think it was with Michelangelo was the only one I could quickly enough get around to build that up and not lose it and be like, oh, okay, this is what this is for. But you, you can definitely tell that early 2000s 3D combat was still in the works of getting it right. 20:34.570 --> 21:07.869 Between that and just developing for so many different systems, I mean, the handheld ones are kind of their own thing and you don't have to worry about them. But the GameCube and the PS2 and the 360 and the Wii, those all just play so differently just As a console, they can handle things so differently just as a console. Like, how are you putting things in there that'll work on the PS2 and the 360 with all those buttons, but will also work on the Wii with like no buttons? 21:07.869 --> 22:37.056 I looked into some of the development on this one, just looking at from a technical aspect, and it seems like the PS2 was the main one they developed for. And then from that, they could kind of carry it over. The Wii was a little trickier from what I've seen, just with some of the waggle. But I think you could also plug in one of the classic controllers and just play it like you would the others. But you can definitely tell they kind of took the PS2 version, quickly ported it over to the GameCube, because we joked before the show, I, I went through and rebuilt a GameCube trying to play it on that version just to get it in 480p, just to find out they never bothered doing that. It's just 480i on both systems, which surprisingly looks better on the PS2. I gotta give them credit, it actually looks cleaner there. Um, And then the, the Wii is just a port of that. The 360 version is it with higher resolution textures, but the exact same mechanics. And then PC is just the cleanest version of the same thing. So I think it did take a developer as large as Ubisoft to do this because they could kind of divide and conquer, but they definitely had one base and then everyone just branched off that and repeated it. I joked about the fact I've been collecting the different versions over this whole time, and I think I'm only missing a few of them, which you have called me a madman and you're not wrong. Uh, but the more I get these, at least for the consoles, and I already had it on PC, it's the same game. I'm just getting the same thing over and over again. The DS and PSP try at least something a little different. And then of course, you know, Game Boy Advance is just outright different as a beat 'em up. So Ubisoft definitely saved some money on development that way. 22:37.056 --> 22:58.088 Yeah. The way this game plays is a weird, like, beat 'em up platformer hybrid thing where some levels you're really focusing on that platforming thing as you go through. Some levels, you're really focusing on that beat 'em up part. I think it works rather well. Like, I mean, it's never going to be somebody's like, this is the best game ever made, but it's fun. 22:58.088 --> 23:59.432 It gets really creative with some of the levels, especially I was surprised at how long some of them are and how intricate they designed them. Like there's, there's some jank to it, but that's to be expected. This is PS2 era development and they're still trying to sort out some of these 3D titles as they're running through. But it worked out once I got used to it and figured out the rhythm of the combat and how things work, I was going faster and further through a lot of them. I would go back and do some of the challenge stages. I actually, I had fun with it. Like, I also think I'm under the expectation of what games were like back then. So I'm curious, like, if I had my kids try and play it now, which they're adults at this point, but, you know, they were really little or just being born at the time, or any modern kid now, how would they handle it? Because we have more games nowadays that try and emulate that older style of titles, but they're so much more refined. find that I don't know if they'd be able to handle it without going like, why is this not controlling as fast? Or, you know, why is it all flickery? Because they don't know what interlaced is. 23:59.432 --> 24:25.572 Yeah, we're finally getting to the point where the younger guy who works at my local comic store is finally alive. So I'm really looking forward to when I can get him on for one of these episodes. And I mean, he's played older things, So it's not like I'm going to throw him in something he's never had any experience with at all. But he's also grown up where like PS3 is the console of his childhood. 24:25.572 --> 24:26.198 Wow. 24:26.198 --> 24:29.326 I'm old enough to be his dad. It's not fair. 24:29.326 --> 26:02.003 I'm old enough to be a lot of people's dad at my age at this point. But even I, I use different devices when I'm playing these games to bring as many modern conveniences to them as I can. So all of my setup is run through a device called a RetroTINK 4K. So it kind of gets rid of a lot of the flickeriness of the 480i and scales it up as best it can to 4K. And I can play it on my TV without any problems. Um, you know, different types of memory cards, all kinds of stuff that I use. So I can at least comfortably play this on my couch with my existing setup without having to break out the CRT TV every time. So not everyone's going to have that. Um, but I think the best experience for this, if someone can play it on an older system on an actual CRT, which we have to explain to kids what a CRT is. I think it would go over a little bit better because it really— they did a great job of translating the art style to the game. Like the models, everything looks identifiable to the movie very clearly. You know, you've got Raphael's entire costume as the Night— was it Night Watcher? I believe so. That translated over. Yeah, they called him a few different names throughout it, making fun of him. So I was trying to remember some of those. That works over really well. They brought over I don't think they brought over the exact voice cast, but the cast that they had was doing a good job of voicing all of the characters. Because like I said, the movie itself was absolutely stacked, which, you know, Chris Evans, that's, I think, like the 5th or 6th comic book movie that man has done that I can think of now. He's been in so many things because he's been, what, Captain America? He's been the Human Torch. 26:02.003 --> 26:02.484 Yeah. 26:02.484 --> 26:11.044 He was the sniper in Losers. He was Casey Jones in this movie. He was the 3rd ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim. 26:11.044 --> 26:11.573 Yeah. 26:11.573 --> 26:18.242 And I think there was a few others. Like, that man has racked up comic book roles. I can't think of many people that have gotten more. 26:18.242 --> 26:21.015 Hmm. 26:21.015 --> 26:22.185 Makes you think, doesn't it? 26:22.185 --> 26:24.269 I know. It's weird. 26:24.269 --> 26:49.111 And that's the beauty of it, is he's not doing the big name— like, he's done the big name ones, the Human Torch and Captain America. But like, he's done a lot of indie comics or lesser-known DC characters. Because like most people, if I tell them about the Losers, they have no idea that's a DC Comics thing. Like they just, they don't know. And it's just great that he's willing to just do all these weird things. And I'm sure he's done some other voice casts that have probably showed up somewhere else. 26:49.383 --> 26:51.594 So that'll be an interesting deep dive. 26:51.594 --> 26:52.090 Yeah. 26:52.187 --> 27:10.322 The one that got us, and we hadn't, we had not watched TMNT in a while. And I know we're kind of wandering off into voice cast. Sorry. I just wanted to get this one out of the way. It dawned on me because it never clicked at the time, but Splinter is played by the same guy that's Uncle Iroh in Avatar. And my wife's like, I can't unhear that now. Every time Splinter talks, I just hear Uncle Iroh from Avatar. 27:10.322 --> 27:11.187 First Iroh? 27:11.187 --> 27:36.214 Same. Yeah. Exact same voice. Like, if he started singing, I would— like, he could start singing the songs. It's the same, same guy. So, and he, he works so well. He's a good Splinter. So, but you notice there's not— he never shows up in the game other than like there's some voiceover with him, but not— I don't think it's the same actor playing him in the game. And I don't think you actually see Splinter show up at all because they skip over a lot of the story. 27:36.214 --> 27:42.546 That's the fun thing with this one. Like, are they skipping over it or are they just not telling that part? Because they're not trying to tell the story of the movie. 27:42.546 --> 27:56.739 Yeah. I mean, at the end, they do try to have some of that last battle and they kind of speedrun it as a challenge mode because you're going through the same previous level you'd already done. But they added a lot of electricity because that is early 2000s design. 27:56.739 --> 28:00.748 I mean, for— to be fair, though, that is also Turtles design. 28:00.748 --> 28:07.852 That's true. You are very true about that. The underwater at the dam hurt a lot of people. Therapy has made money off of that game. 28:07.852 --> 28:09.503 Probably both of us included. 28:09.503 --> 28:13.687 I don't think I ever properly got through without a GameShark. It just made me so mad. 28:13.687 --> 28:15.065 I guarantee you I didn't. 28:15.065 --> 28:45.923 But you, you, you run through that and then they have a speedrun boss rush of the, the 4 generals. You know, once you get through that, it just immediately cuts to credits and goes from there. I think you see Winters once in a hallway. No, I'm sorry. You do see him. You hear him earlier in the movie. And it is, I have to say, one of the worst Patrick Stewart impersonations I've ever heard. It's so bad. I just— oh, you need to go back and listen to it again because you're just like, that is— you're not even trying, man. 28:45.923 --> 28:53.137 As we start to wrap this up, what do you think are the big things that this game really gets right looking at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? 28:53.137 --> 29:49.205 The interaction between the brothers. They do a really good job with that. And once you start getting more of the characters in, the little quips and some of the actions you can do when you can do hot swaps or multi-attacks with people plays into kind of the fun of their acrobatics and the things they like to do. And even when you mess and they yell at each other and say stuff, it feels very much just like the siblings fighting as they do, where one of them has a tantrum and wanders off for a bit and you got to earn them back. And they'll make jokes on the way back, like, all right, I guess I'll come back in here. I guess I'll help out, you know? So I was glad to see— and I was a little worried at first because we talked about they— it's just level after level of how fast can you get from point A to point B on a timer? And you don't have that. It's almost the middle of the game before you get the ability to switch characters and work together. So it's— it very much changes at that point. So I thought that was one of the best things. That and the fact they kept the visual art style, I think, was a really big thing from that movie to this that really helps tie it together. 29:49.205 --> 30:19.594 I think the big thing for me in this one is that they had both the solo and the team aspects going, because Turtles, more so than most other teams that I can think of, definitely has everybody go off and do their own thing every once in a while. But they always come back to each other because that's what brothers do. And they're going to love each other no matter what. And, you know, they might be saying that you're a complete dumbass while you're doing stuff, but you're their dumbass and they're going to have your back. 30:19.594 --> 30:20.384 For sure. 30:20.384 --> 30:22.853 What do you think this one gets wrong looking at Turtles? 30:22.853 --> 31:26.828 I think they, they put too much of an emphasis on the challenge levels first. I think it should have started off like I get You get starting off with Leonardo. That's how the film started off. You kind of get the story of him doing that. But I think they could have played a little bit more into the connections with the turtles, even if they limited you to just having, like, you know, the Michelangelo level. You're talking to Donatello as you're trying to cross town, but there could have been some kind of connection where, you know, they could— maybe those two could do something together. Or Raphael could have been involved more with Casey Jones. Like, Casey Jones is not even, as far as I know, playable in any way, and he would have fit in perfectly with this because Raph and Casey have always been kind of their own little combo team as well. So he would have been fun either, either as an unlockable or more of the story itself. And I think the movie prepped April for being playable as well. So they could have really expanded on letting you swap people out, maybe a way to, you know, flesh out those first levels and have teams in some way. I think beyond that, they did a pretty good job, like I said, of actually showing the relationships with all of them and kind of going through that part. Also, we need more Splinter. 31:26.828 --> 31:40.240 Yeah, I think the lack of Splinter is the big thing for me. And And I get it with it being based on the movie. You're trying to follow what went along with the movie and everything, but you still need more Splinter. And yeah. 31:40.240 --> 32:46.910 They did have a couple of flashback moments, including like there's a flashback to them fighting Shredder, which is real out of pocket and not like any of the films it's based on, but at least he's there. But that could have been a good spot for having Splinter or somebody talking about You know, doing other things. Like, Splinter kept talking about like, oh yeah, I was in the jungle, I'm the one that left the amulet there. Okay, well then why don't you show us how you— why you hid it, or show us you going through this place and exploring? Like, they were not afraid to reuse levels. Why not have him in there as an extra thing? If you knew somebody who somehow was living under a rock and didn't know about the Turtles, would you give them this game as part of a Uh, if I might have in earlier times, but we live in an age which has one of the golden eras of a Ninja Turtles game collection, and there is no right answer if it's not giving them that Turtles collection. This would definitely be a later down the line after I got them into the movie first. Maybe they could enjoy it afterwards, but I think you have to have the film for this to make the game tolerable, if that makes sense. 32:46.910 --> 33:09.471 Yeah, this one's in a weird spot where You either have to know about Turtles already or you're giving them the movie at the same time, because this as a solo experience, I don't think works very well for showing you who the Turtles are and everything. But if you've got that background knowledge and you've got that foundation and everything, it's definitely not the best thing you could give somebody, but it's not a horrible choice. 33:09.471 --> 33:39.662 It's middle to lower end of the scale, I would say. It's nowhere near the worst. There are some terrible Ninja Turtle games people should not play, but this you can at least enjoy as a beat 'em up or platformer of the era. It's kind of a nice multi, like, hey, we're going to show you some stuff about Ninja Turtles, but we're also going to show you about game design in the early 2000s on a PlayStation 2. And you can see kind of how that scales across and you, how everyone made these movie tie-ins because that's the thing we don't get anymore are good movie tie-ins. 33:39.662 --> 33:40.047 Yeah. 33:40.304 --> 33:41.635 I wonder why all of that stopped. 33:42.052 --> 34:00.824 Mobile games. People could just put out a cell phone game cheaper, faster, with less effort. It runs its course and then they just dump it and never think about it again as they move on to the next project. It kind of prevents people like you and me from doing shows like this, talking about old games, because good luck finding a cell phone that has, you know, one of those tie-ins still. 34:00.824 --> 34:07.177 That is one of the reasons why I'm specifically not looking at mobile-only games unless somebody comes and begs me to do it. 34:07.706 --> 34:16.057 You would need some good emulation to get it right. And I can't think of very many, if any, good just mobile-only games that would be worth covering really. 34:16.057 --> 34:20.512 No, 'cause I think most of them are just runners with a skin or something else with a skin. 34:20.512 --> 34:38.755 Yeah. Or they're like a take on another game with just, like you said, a skin, you know, like a Space Invaders or they got pretty cheap with a lot of them. A lot of them now are like, what was it like pick-3 puzzle games where you just kind of moving things, match-3 or whatever. They're just tie-ins. They might as well just be like a Las Vegas Vegas slot machine at this point. 34:38.755 --> 34:39.381 Yeah. 34:39.702 --> 34:57.966 And finally, I mean, it's cool seeing all the brothers tell us what they were doing, but if we were going to go more of a style of you see somebody else acting out what they were doing as they tell the story, what Muppets do you think need to come in and be each turtle as they're telling their story? 34:57.966 --> 35:33.350 What Muppets? Okay. Did not expect that question. I like it. Raphael would have to be Sam the Eagle because he's just grumpy, big, and brooding, and kind of has that angrier attitude for a lot of it. Mikey would have to be Fozzie Bear because he's just trying to crack jokes whether they make sense or not. Loves playing with different props and doing weird things. And he would be the one I would expect to put a silly turtle head on, even as a bear, and try and run with it. Donatello would have to be— oh, I'm blanking on his name. He was in The Muppet Show, and he was the one with the glasses that would help run the actual show. 35:33.350 --> 35:33.895 Scooter? 35:34.360 --> 36:17.738 Scooter, thank you. Donatello will be Scooter, I think, because he has that same attitude. And I know Bunsen and Beaker are right there, but I feel they don't really fit Donatello's style for that. They're more mad scientist and eternal sufferer. And they're some of my favorite Muppets. But Scooter, I think, fits Donatello well. And then for Leonardo, you would naturally want to kind of go towards Kermit because he's trying to keep everything organized. And even after saying that, I would still have to say Hermit, because he is trying to lead everybody, whether he gets it right or not, to actually hold up to that. Now, are we including Splinter in this, or are we just— because I'd have to do Rizzo. I know it makes no sense, and it's a rat for a rat, but Rizzo as Splinter would be stupidly funny. 36:17.738 --> 36:26.505 I was really worried about who you were going to pick for Splinter, but for some reason, I'm OK with Rizzo being dead, because he would find a way to make that a joke, and he's not really dead. 36:26.505 --> 36:36.069 Could you imagine him, like, from the first movie coming back as, like, the spiritual version of him in the fire, but it's just Rizzo going, hey, what's going on, guys? Like, I would be, I would be for that. 36:36.069 --> 36:39.659 Yeah, that, I mean, that's exactly why I'm okay with Rizzo being dead. 36:39.659 --> 36:41.246 Yeah, he could do it. 36:41.246 --> 36:46.775 Well, Jeremy, it has been great talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you around the internet? 36:46.775 --> 37:12.488 I host the Zen's Path Entertainment Network podcast, which you can find over at YouTube at youtube.com/ZensPathCOM, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts, you can search for that and find it. Or the easiest way to find all of our stuff, including our Discord, where even you are talking to us on occasion about stuff over at zenspath.com. All the links for everything is there and our socials and all that fun stuff. So you can hear from me, Stephen, and Chase as we talk gaming and tech news every week. 37:12.488 --> 37:19.687 And just like always, we'll have links to all that down in the show notes. Because even though Zen's Path is an easy thing to remember, I will find a way to spell it wrong. 37:19.687 --> 37:24.434 Yeah, it happens. It's not the easiest word to say either, but I like it. 37:24.434 --> 37:25.973 You only have yourself to blame for that. 37:25.973 --> 37:29.036 Actually, I have my wife to blame. She came up with the name and I just love it. So. 37:29.036 --> 37:35.612 Well, don't tell her that. You can tell her that you love it part, but I wouldn't tell her that you're blaming her for it being hard to say. 37:35.612 --> 38:01.820 She originally thought of it— there's a quick, quick tale. My nickname is Zen because I used to listen to a band called Bush all the time in high school who had a song called Everything Zen, and people made that joke and it just became my nickname. And then Amanda, my wife, when we were coming up with the original podcast like 15 years ago and the website, she was trying to help me come up with names and said, what about Zen's Path to Gaming Enlightenment? And then I just kind of crammed together Zen's Path and that became the whole thing. So yeah, that's how it came to be. 38:01.820 --> 38:03.791 Nice. Also, that's a good song. It is. 38:03.903 --> 38:04.432 It's a very good song. 38:04.432 --> 40:08.122 And as always, the best place to find me is over on playcomics.com where you can find links to all the social media things, which is, you know, threads and Bluesky, because as far as I know, those are the only ones that exist and definitely not any other ones that have been taken over by horrible people. Yeah, that's how the internet works. If you want to be on the show, then the best way to do that is to look at the link that I have down in the show notes to what I'm looking to get booked the soonest. That is a pretty up-to-date list of things where I'm saying, hey, not only is this a game that you can be a guest for, it's one that I'm actively looking for people to come be a guest for. So, you know, come check that out. Because like I said, the link is down in the show notes, so it's really easy to find. If you want to help support the show, then you can be like Dan McMahon or Ono Lit Class and give the show money, because, you know, it does cost money to run a podcast, you know, just hosting And yeah, that's pretty much it because I consider getting these games as just for me because I keep them and will play them anyway. That is the kind of person that I am. But you can also help out by leaving a review at your favorite review places or just telling other people about the podcast, whether it be your friends or your family or that person over at the pet store that really likes turtles because this episode is about turtles, even though the turtles that he likes are presumably not ninjas. at least that we know of. I think that's how nature works. Don't forget that Play Comics is a part of the gonna geek.com network, home to a bunch of other wonderful geeky shows like Capes on the Couch, which is back and still hasn't done Spider-Gwen, even though Anthony told me that eventually there will be a Spider-Gwen. He also said that I'm not allowed to be the voice of Spider-Gwen, which is fine because I wasn't gonna ask him to do that anyway. I'm not that crazy. Don't forget that Play Comics is also part of the art comedy pop culture network a bunch of other wonderfully geeky shows. And again, I'm going to tell you, check out Tales from the Brick because Legos are cool. And even though I can't afford to get all the sets that I want, because the sets that I want are the old school Lego castles from when I was a child in the '90s, and I don't even want to think about how much those would cost right now, I can still dream about having them. 40:08.475 --> 40:08.699 It could— 40:08.699 --> 40:47.373 because in my dreams I can afford Legos. If you want to hear Karen, Tim Martin, and I talking about all those shows that taught us all these lessons when we were kids and All of a sudden, you know, we're adults now and we shouldn't be listening to those lessons because that would make us silly people who are idealists and stuff. Yeah, who said that was a bad idea? Keep following those lessons and listen to those episodes by checking out Sugar, Spite, and Everything Is Fine. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of right now, head on over to backingtrack.gg and check out all the great music over there and maybe find something for your own project. Most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics, and go find yourself a new favorite character.