he Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters have appeared in video games through a variety of genres. They’ve been cast in 2D fighters, traditional side-scrollers, and, of course, arcade beat-em-ups. The heroes in a half shell still get plenty of chances to use their trademark weapons in their latest incarnation, but in Ubisoft Montreal’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title, the focus is just as much on Prince of Persia-styled acrobatics. We sat down with a nearly complete Xbox 360 build, and even though it had its share of problems, TMNT is a solid choice for fans of platform action.

The game follows some of the events in the upcoming film and also delves into the personalities beneath the color-coded bandanas. While their general characterizations will be familiar to fans of the cartoon (Michelangelo is the party dude, Donatello is the brainy one, etc.), deeper motivations are hinted at and shown throughout the game’s cutscenes and dialogue. For example, Leonardo is on an ongoing search for enlightenment and Raphael has some serious anger issues.

Where other TMNT games focused on other aspects of the franchise, Ubisoft has placed the ninja portion of the acronym front and center. The characters skitter around more like cockroaches than human-sized terrapins, walking up walls and bounding over obstacles with ease. The game uses Ubisoft’s Jade engine, which was used in the Prince of Persia series—a lineage that’s apparent almost immediately. The controls are tight and make hopping through the environments a breeze. A typical section might have a turtle make a running leap across a rooftop gap, grab onto a ledge, work his way around a corner and scale between two buildings. After playing a while, the moves become second nature, and getting from one place to another—no matter how seemingly impossible—becomes intuitive.

Unfortunately, those environments aren’t anything special. They’re largely bland and linear, with seemingly explorable areas inelegantly blocked off with large, invisible barriers. They’re also mostly unpopulated, too, which makes the New York City levels seem particularly lonely. In an especially strange break with genre tradition, objects strewn throughout the levels can’t be interacted with. When I saw a fire hydrant for the first time, I walked over and bashed it with my bo staff, expecting to see a torrent of water. Nope. Crates, telephone booths and other such staples are just as resilient. Even though the game doesn’t include health bonuses or other powerups, destructible objects are almost a given at this point in gaming. The game’s pacing is quick enough that you probably won’t linger around any given area long enough for those flaws to be terribly detrimental, however. Ultimately, if you want to interact with passersby or break things for the sake of breaking things, you’re playing the wrong game.

While hopping through levels is a high point, the combat is generally a bore and barely more sophisticated than what we played in the arcade 15 years ago. Your enemies circle the turtles, gamely waiting for their turn to get knocked out after a few hits. You can create combo chains, which slow down time and give you an extra dose of turtle power, though the enemies you do encounter are so puny that the effects are barely noticeable. Each of the turtles has their own play style, which generally translates to variations in weapon range and strength. Donatello’s staff obviously has a great reach, but even Leonardo’s katanas can be boomeranged around him, giving him some much needed range. The game includes team attacks, where the turtles work together to damage the enemies, but it’s strictly a one-player affair.

At the start of the game, you’re limited to one turtle, but the rest of the bunch becomes accessible as you progress through the story. The narrative style is pretty cool, and is set up as a discussion with the various turtles. As they reminisce on previous adventures, the levels put the player in control of those memories. As you run out of a crumbling temple, Leonardo comments about his escape in a short voiceover, for example. It’s a great device that allows the game to take place across a variety of periods without getting bogged down in walls of text or extended cutscenes.

After you beat the game, there are incentives to play through levels again. Depending on your performance, you earn credits that can be exchanged for various art galleries, movie clips and goofy accessories. For this kind of game, it’s nice to have a reason to dive back in after completion, and the in-game rewards are actually worth checking out. Of course, the 360 version has a wealth of achievements, if you need another reason to keep playing.

I’m doing my best to avoid making terrible Turtle Wax puns here, but it’s clear the game could have used a bit more polish. Sometimes characters will speak over themselves, creating a confusing audio effect. Raphael in particular had a habit of shouting, “Here’s Johnny,” at the most inappropriate times, including while walking down long, unoccupied hallways. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry. The camera occasionally does strange things, which is odd for a game with a computer-controlled viewpoint.

Quibbles aside, TMNT is one of the better Turtles games out there, and it’s a joy to control. A multiplayer mode would have been a nice addition to the game, but with so much precision jumping and running, it’s clear why it wasn’t featured. If you like the franchise and are looking for a slightly darker title in line with the new movie, check out TMNT when it ships next week.