After E3, Sarah sang Ubisoft's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up's praises. For those who don't know, Smash-Up is essentially a Wii exclusive Super Smash Bros. clone with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pasted over Nintendo's characters, allowing TMNT fans to enjoy a brawler set in their universe. Sarah, admittedly, isn't a Smash Bros. fan, and went into it with the mindset of someone who wasn't really all too into the gameplay style. I, on the other hand, gave Super Smash Bros. Brawl a perfect score. Needless to say, the differing opinions we had on Nintendo's brawler carried over to Ubisoft's as well.

This isn't me saying I didn't like the game. On the contrary, I quite enjoyed playing, and hit "restart" three times as the developer asked if we wanted to move on and see other things. In fact, I'm fairly sure I'll be picking it up at launch. I'm also a big fan of TMNT, something which is (as expected) very present in the game. Many of the different characters from the comics, movies, and show make appearances, and the lack of a film to tie-in to means they were able to use whatever they wanted and take their time with the game. This leads to a full experience, with plentiful amounts of TMNT references and polished graphics.

That said, I wasn't all to impressed with certain aspects of the gameplay, which felt, in many ways, to be a little less complex than I would have liked. While we were being shown the game, it was mentioned that competitive Smash Bros. players took it for a test drive at E3, and walked away talking about how much deeper it was than Brawl. With the exception of a few mechanics (namely the ability to dive upwards if two or more opponents team up on you) it just didn't feel all that impressive. That might be due to my experience with Brawl and how close it feels, or it might be something deeper. Only time will tell if this complaint is legitimate, and I hope it isn't.

Despite a less-than-perfect first impression of the game, my expectations are still high for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up. My hope is that my complaints weren't really valid, and can be attributed to my limited time with the game. There might be, and likely are, deeper mechanics I wasn't able to experiment with - something I won't be able to attest to until I'm able to invest more time in the fighter later this year.