Welcome to Let’s Make a Game! This is the first installment in a new feature where we explore how we would make the games we want to see. Today, we’re going to make a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game with a little help from Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders, so let’s get started.

Art Style

First, let’s talk art. There’s really no need for another cartoon-style TMNT game right now. The TMNT franchise has been incredibly hit-and-miss in the game department, and it seems to falter most when appealing to the newest generation of fans. There seems to be quite a strong following, or at least fond fanbase, among older fans of the original run and that is who we will focus on today.

I think our TMNT game would be best suited falling somewhere between Joe Madureira’s comic style and the supremely awesome “fan art” of Dave Rapoza.

Ultimately, it would fall into a blend between Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders. Dark with a hint of color, but maintaining a hint of that ominous feeling of danger and despair.

Gameplay

TMNT usually always takes place in a cityscape, and there hasn’t been a much better city built lately than Arkham City, so I see that as the perfect jumping-off point. You’ve got basically everything you need for a pseudo-open-world TMNT game; with everything from buildings to streets and alleys, and even a nice sewer system to explore. Ideally, I’d love to see a solid single-player campaign where you could switch characters at specific points (perhaps sewer grates or pizza parlors). I’d also like to see four-player co-op via Xbox Live and PSN. Imagine cleaning up the streets of thugs, Foot Clan soldiers, and the occasional Mouser, all with the help of your turtle brothers.

TMNT has a huge stable of characters that could easily foot the bill and give the Turtles a run for their money; Krang, Shredder, Lord Dregg, Baxter Stockman, Rat King and Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose, and of course a little friendly competition from Casey Jones wouldn’t hurt either. You could even have Slash and Venus DLC and a mysterious watcher in the form of Usagi Yojimbo.

Mechanics

Yes, it’s a recurring element, but it’s hard to think of a more engaging and rewarding combat system than that of Batman: Arkham City. Playing through the combat challenges as Robin and Nightwing is actually what prompted me to set Batman: Arkham City as the foundation for a TMNT game. Playing as Catwoman also made me realize you wouldn’t have to walk around as a brooding, face-smashing, bone-breaking, loner all the time, but you of course may want to when playing as Raphael. Play through the extreme combat challenges in Batman: Arkham City as the staff-toting Red Robin and tell me you don’t feel just a bit like Donatello. Give Nightwing a couple of sais and you’ve got one hell of a Michelangelo. Having said that, Rocksteady would be the absolute perfect developer for our game, and Bebop would agree.

The Turtles may not have the Dark Knight’s arsenal of gadgets, but they’re no slouches when it comes to maneuverability. They are ninjas after all. I would say they would have little to no problem traversing a city similar to that of Arkham City, and would probably be much less afraid of the water. The sewer system would probably need to be expansive and maybe serve as a quick-travel route depending on the size of the map. I would definitely forego the Turtle Van as a means of transportation, but a cameo would definitely be welcome.

As far as difficulty, I wouldn’t again place it right in between Darksiders and Batman: Arkham City; an area where it’s not impossible for kids 10 and up but still engaging enough for adults. After all, I can’t imagine a TMNT game would get licensed for anything above a T-Teen rating anyway.

Music might be a tricky area, but there would have to be an inclusion of some version of the original theme to really put a bow on it.

Finished Product

(Please excuse my terrible design skills.)

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: EA
Release Date: May 2013
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PS Vita
Players: 1-4 Xbox Live, PSN
MSRP: $59.99

So I think our game sounds pretty great. Yes, it borrows a lot from Arkham City, but no more than Ubisoft and Game Arts borrowed from Super Smash Bros Brawl when they made TMNT: Smash Up a few years back. Sometimes a good game engine should be utilized to the fullest!

Darksiders II has been confirmed to be in development for a couple of months now. This week, we learned some new details in the most unlikely of places. You would think that Vigil Games would have been given their new Darksiders title some space at the THQ’s booth on the E3 show floor. But no, the biggest announcement was made right before my eyes at the Nintendo press conference.  Darksiders II is on it’s way to the Wii U!

We learned about it on the tail-end of the major Nintendo announcements.  After the 25^th anniversary celebration announcement for the Legend of Zelda series, after the confirmation of nearly every first-party Nintendo title coming to 3DS, and after the reveal of Nintendo’s brand new console, we were treated to a 30-second video clip showing that Darksiders II will be a launch title for the Wii U. This was the only place that Darksiders was mentioned. I couldn’t have been more excited. The original Darksiders was one of my favorite games of 2010.  The prospect of playing the sequel on new Nintendo hardware has my inner fanboy fawning over the possibilities.

I’m the most excited for the sequel’s anticipated changes and improvements over the original.  Vigil Games has already stated that they paying close attention to their fans’ feedback.  Hopefully this will clean up the most common complaints from the first Darksiders game. They have promised more side quests, more non-player characters, and a much larger map to explore. What this means for you is more gameplay and a better overall experience. Also, just think of all the cool things we’ll be able to do with the new Wii U controller.

If Vigil is able to keep their promise with the side quests and NPC’s, there will be a lot of extra loot and items to make the main character, Death, as powerful as you want him to be. The shift of the main character from War in the original Darksiders to Death (who bears a striking resemblance to Slipknot guitarist Mick Thompson IMHO) will also shake things up quite a bit.

As the Darksiders universe is based upon the 4 horsemen, Death will be the second horseman out of the gates showing a different side of of the same story from the original Darksiders game. Death will also play differently than War as his moves are going to be more focused on agility and dodging rather than brute strength and blocking.

Darksiders II is scheduled for release sometime in 2012. Many more details are expected to be announced at PAX Prime this coming August.

Darksiders, the epic action adventure game released in early 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PS3, gets its debut release for the PC this week, and there are some pretty sweet incentives included with pre-order from the major digital distributors.

THQ, Inc announced Monday that, aside from the standard release in retail outlets, users who pre-load the game from Gametap, Direct 2 Drive and Steam will be able to log in and play starting on September 23rd at 12:01 EST, the official release date.  In addition to this, for every pre-order on Gametap a free copy of Company of Heroes is included, while individuals who pre-order Darksiders from Steam will receive a copy of Titans Quest Gold Edition, and any users pre-ordering from Direct 2 Drive will receive a free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla.  (Between you and me, if the freebies are the deciding factor for you, go with Red Faction: Guerrilla – it fucking rules.)

For those of you not familiar with Darksiders, it follows the story of War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as he is deceived by the forces of evil into bringing about the end of mankind.  In order to set things right and bring back balance to the powers of good and evil, War must return to Earth and battle the hordes of demons and angels who are ironically hell-bent on stopping him.  War must join forces with the very demons he was bound to hunt to gain the power to fight the Destroyer, the leader of evil forces who tricked War into beginning Armageddon.

Follow War as he scours the charred Earth, harnessing his supernatural powers to eradicate his enemies with extreme prejudice.  As he progresses through mazes of enemies and faces puzzling challenges, he gains more powerful skills, including the ability to summon the Horseman’s fiery mount ‘Ruin,’ the ability to glide on the souls of the damned, and the power to transform into a massive invulnerable beast with unmatched destructive potential.

Darksiders was an awesome game on the 360, and a cut above (both graphically and gameplay-wise) the other end-of-the-world action adventure console games that were release beside it, namely Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno.  With noted updates to the PC release, I find myself hard-pressed not to pre-order, especially with bonus games like Company of Heroes and Red Faction: Guerrilla thrown in to sweeten up the deal.  To top it off with a big fat cherry, THQ and Vigil Games have already announced that Darksiders 2 is already in production, and slated for release in 2012.

Vigil Games first release is a lot of things. It is a little bit of the Legend of Zelda. It has parts of God of War and Devil May Cry. It has elements borrowed from the Warcraft universe and even the teleport gun from Portal. Heck even the basis of the story and “The Four Horsemen” is an adaption. Yep, that’s right, straight from the song of the same title from Metallica’s debut album Kill ‘Em All.

Let’s make a quick list of the things we know to be true:
The Legend of Zelda = Awesome
God of War = Awesome
Devil May Cry = Awesome
Warcraft = Awesome
Portal = Awesome
Metallica before the Black Album = Awesome

The question that needs to be answered is if you take pieces of all those games and mix it all together, is it still awesome?

Typically the answer is no. You usually end up with something that looks and feels like it was glued together by a 6 year old at summer camp. These games are also usually tied to a blockbuster summer movies and are rushed to market to match the movie release date. Since we know that Darksiders was based on a Metallica song from 1983 and not a movie, it was given the time it needed to get polished and put together properly. This is what you are getting with Darksiders, a graphically impressive game with solid controls and a well designed interface. The art direction is well put together and the cut scenes are even more impressive. While the 360 version launched with some frame rate and tearing issues, a patch has already been released to correct those issues.

The game play is very similar to what you would expect from God of War or Devil May Cry. You have different button combos and weapons that you can use to string together lengthy combos on multiple enemies. Defeating enemies releases their souls which you capture to cash in later for more moves and upgraded weapons. The puzzle solving elements and dungeons are straight from the 3D Zelda games with their own twists and advancements. One example is the addition of the teleport gun which works very similar to what you found previously in Portal. Also while traveling through the landscape, you have those “Ah ha” moments when you see some where that you can’t quite get to but know that you will eventually gain the equipment or skill needs to get to where you are going.  You also unlock your trusty steed Epona…I mean Ruin later on in the game to make traveling through the environment much faster. I will be the first to admit that this game is not perfect however. They could have left out the swimming levels that no game developer can see to get right. One other common complaint is the lack of interaction and NPC’s in the environment. Hopefully these will be items that are addressed in sequels to this title. It is also quite short for an adventure game tracking in at just over 20 hours. The amount of replayability is high however as a result of this short play time and multiple difficulty settings.

The bottom line here is that this game is getting knocked around for stealing ideas from other games when it should be praised for making it work. This is the mature, high definition, Zelda game that fans have been demanding for years. This game has sold over 500k copies under its first 30 days at market. While it is a multiplatform release, it is a brand new IP and the first release from Vigil Games. It was also released in the shadow of two of the most anticipated sequels of the year, Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2.  Vigil has now proven that there is a market for this type of violent adventure game. It is time for Nintendo to step up to the plate and take The Legend of Zelda franchise to the next level. Darksiders is a solid first offering from Vigil Games and is defiantly worth picking up. I am looking forward to 3 sequels for each of the other 4 Horsemen.