Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows Now Available For Xbox 360, Steam

Fans of the new or old television cartoon of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or nostalgic fans of the arcade or the Sega Genesis outing that featured classic beat 'em up gameplay rivaled only by Streets of Rage and Crime Fighters 2, will be pleased to know that nostalgia hits back hard with Activision's latest licensed-based beat 'em up, which has launched today for the Xbox 360 as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade, as well as on Steam for PC.

Activision announced today that the teenage, green, mutant fighting machines that have always been popularized with young kids and man-children alike are making a return to form with a four-player cooperative fighting title that takes many of the old elements of classic side-scrolling beat 'em up action and mashes it into today's generation of technology.

The budget-priced title features the four loveable ninja turtles, named after classical artists and packing enough power to their punch to make Chuck Norris puke. As noted in the press release...

The Turtles' full range of personalities are on display throughout this original story in the TMNT universe, bringing humor and attitude to the unfolding narrative and influencing each character’s unique fighting style. Powerful unlockable abilities and weapon upgrades open up new ways to punish the sinister bosses of the Foot Clan and the thuggish armies they command. Swap between Turtles instantly in single-player, or join up with friends via drop-in/drop-out cooperative play to dominate these dastardly doers of evil as a team in either Arcade or Story mode.

It's good to see more cooperative beat 'em up titles releasing for consoles and PC... especially for PC. While consoles have had a good helping of titles like Scott Pilgrim Vs The World and Vanillaware's recent serving of Dragon's Crown, poor PC gamers have been left in the proverbial dust; only receiving spurts of beat 'em up titles every once in a while such as Fist Puncher and Sacred Citadel. Oh yeah, and there's also the re-release of the classic Capcom arcade outing of Dungeons & Dragons.

Thankfully, Activision wasn't stingy and decided to spread the new-generation of beat 'em up goodness with the fellow PC Master Race civilization, imparting upon such gentry a well rounded 3D game with an arcade and story mode and enough fisticuffs action to make a punch-drunk American boxer look soft.

If four-player arcade-style fighting with drop-in and drop-out co-op isn't enough to win you over, maybe the inclusion of cheat codes that aren't DLC will get you to converge on this title like the nostalgia driven game junkie that you are. Come on, you know that you miss classic cheat codes where you insert a button combo and something happens that doesn't include a pop-up advertisement for DLC. You know you like that sexy cheat code stuff... come on, admit it.

You can grab Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows right now for the Xbox Live Arcade, as part of the summer of arcade – which is still pumping out info and insight in partnership with popular YouTube personalities over on the Polaris Channel – for only $14.99. The game is also available right now on Steam for the exact same price.

You can learn more about the game by paying a visit to the official website.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.