

It goes on and on, with each stage boasting no real character interaction or subplots, or even much of a plot.

Beat up Michelangelo to impress her," and so on. A typical story line goes something like this: Stage 1 - "You're in the dojo, train by hitting punching bags!" followed by Stage 2 - "You're done training, now beat up thugs in an alley!" followed by stage 3- "You're in April O'Neil's apartment. And by loosely, you should understand the supposed story is practically non-existent. The first mode, called Adventure Mode, follows one of 10 characters (four unlocked, six unlockable) through 100 quickie stages tied very loosely by a story.

Mutant Melee splits gameplay into two main modes. Once again, Mutant Melee, like the two games before it, suffers from a bunch of serious, fun-deteriorating issues. Melee in that regard, but for all things righteous don't think the two games compare when it comes to quality. As the name implies, Mutant Melee will have you battling everyone from Shredder to Foot Soldiers, and Master Splinter to Casey Jones, in a series of mini-games and matches. It's more of a spin-off, using all the characters from the show and throwing them in a disjointed adventure. Mutant Melee is not a direct sequel to Battle Nexus, in that it doesn't follow the timeline of the new cartoon. So when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Battle Nexus shipped with clunky controls, the only thing left for fans to do was wait for the next installment. It needs to be responsive, fluid and intuitive. When a game builds its foundation on frenetic combat, the one thing you just can't mess up on is control. Control felt sloppy in both cases and wound up muddling the whole experience. Folks who played the last two Turtle games from Konami have reason to fear this one, seeing they both suffered from a myriad of issues. Several years and incarnations later, Konami has released the latest game based on the aging Ninja Turtle property, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Melee.
