I’m not the biggest VR guy. I think the last time I messed with anything in VR was when I first got my PlayStation VR. But to be fair, I enjoyed a lot of the games I got, especially Beat Saber, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, and Batman Arkham VR. When I was asked if I wanted to take a GDC offsite appointment to play a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, I was all the way down. Say less.
As an 80s baby and a 90s kid, the Ninja Turtles were my jam. I remember watching the TMNT animated series on the USA Network every night at 7:30 PM, and I remember this one peculiar night where my dad had to pry my four-year-old self from the bed to the back of our family van to go to the hospital because my mom had just given birth to my brother.
I was too busy being a Ninja Turtle to realize that such an important milestone event was happening.
And now, thanks to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City, you can really be a Ninja Turtle. Well, at least in VR.
It’s awesome just seeing the turtles vibing in first-person.
Once I dawned the Meta Quest helmet, I was chillin’ in the sewers! It was cool seeing Raph and Don just lounging around. I even saw Master Splinter in the sewer dojo just standing there being the old rat that he is. Me? I was Leonardo. I could tell because when I reached behind me, all of a sudden I was brandishing dual katanas, and I just slashed like there was no tomorrow. As for Mikey, I had no idea where he was. I was just picking up pizza from off the ground throwing it at random places in the lounge.
We only had like 15-20 minutes to play the game, but I could’ve stayed in the sewer base for more than an hour. There was a lot I wanted to do! Raph was just sitting watching TV, and I saw April at the counter going over a spread. There was even chessboard that looked like it had interactive pieces. I don’t know if the pieces were collectibles or something you unlock as you go, but I was intrigued.
Finally, it was time to go on a mission. One problem though: I already felt a little bit woozy.
That was the first demo I ever played where I needed a break while being in it.
After I took an actual quick rest from that VR action, I jumped back in, but we experienced some technical difficulties–which is a good thing, devs wanna be finding and solving bugs when they demo with people unfamiliar with product. Anyway, after inputting a code to make sure I was in the same session as my guide, we explored New York and just messed around there too, climbing random buildings and have him show me the lay of the land. It’s also probably worth mentioning that I switched characters from Leonard to Donatello. So instead of the dual swords, I was rocking a kendo stick.
I didn’t find New York to be as cool as being in the sewers, but there was definitely more room to roam. One of the cool things you can do in the game is climb everything, which took some getting used to in this VR setup, but I found it pretty nifty. Eventually we found ourselves fighting some solders of the Foot, and combat honestly was a little tough. I wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to be holding the stick like you would in real life, or if I could just hold the stick with one hand and waggle. The latter seemed to work, but I wasn’t sure, because I really struggled whenever it was time to fight. Meanwhile, the person leading me through the demo was just murking dudes as Raphael, so I’m pretty sure it was just me sucking.
It was a really short time with the demo, but I really vibed with my time with the game. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is slated to release this year on the Meta Quest. I don’t have one, nor do I have a PC that could really run the Quest to its potential, but this is a game I’d definitely want to come back to if I had the resources or if it ended up on PSVR2 or something because it was a lot of fun, and I feel like Cortopia really did right by TMNT. For some reason that’s hard for developers to do (I’m looking at you, Mutants in Manhattan) when other developers just have an amazing time doing something cool (yep, that’s you Shredder’s Revenge).
I’m not the biggest VR guy. I think the last time I messed with anything in VR was when I first got my PlayStation VR. But to be fair, I enjoyed a lot of the games I got, especially Beat Saber, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, and Batman Arkham VR. When I was asked if I wanted to take a GDC offsite appointment to play a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, I was all the way down. Say less.
I’m not the biggest VR guy. I think the last time I messed with anything in VR was when I first got my PlayStation VR. But to be fair, I enjoyed a lot of the games I got, especially Beat Saber, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, and Batman Arkham VR. When I was asked if I wanted to take a GDC offsite appointment to play a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, I was all the way down. Say less.
As an 80s baby and a 90s kid, the Ninja Turtles were my jam. I remember watching the TMNT animated series on the USA Network every night at 7:30 PM, and I remember this one peculiar night where my dad had to pry my four-year-old self from the bed to the back of our family van to go to the hospital because my mom had just given birth to my brother.
I was too busy being a Ninja Turtle to realize that such an important milestone event was happening.
And now, thanks to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City, you can really be a Ninja Turtle. Well, at least in VR.
It’s awesome just seeing the turtles vibing in first-person.
Once I dawned the Meta Quest helmet, I was chillin’ in the sewers! It was cool seeing Raph and Don just lounging around. I even saw Master Splinter in the sewer dojo just standing there being the old rat that he is. Me? I was Leonardo. I could tell because when I reached behind me, all of a sudden I was brandishing dual katanas, and I just slashed like there was no tomorrow. As for Mikey, I had no idea where he was. I was just picking up pizza from off the ground throwing it at random places in the lounge.
We only had like 15-20 minutes to play the game, but I could’ve stayed in the sewer base for more than an hour. There was a lot I wanted to do! Raph was just sitting watching TV, and I saw April at the counter going over a spread. There was even chessboard that looked like it had interactive pieces. I don’t know if the pieces were collectibles or something you unlock as you go, but I was intrigued.
Finally, it was time to go on a mission. One problem though: I already felt a little bit woozy.
That was the first demo I ever played where I needed a break while being in it.
After I took an actual quick rest from that VR action, I jumped back in, but we experienced some technical difficulties–which is a good thing, devs wanna be finding and solving bugs when they demo with people unfamiliar with product. Anyway, after inputting a code to make sure I was in the same session as my guide, we explored New York and just messed around there too, climbing random buildings and have him show me the lay of the land. It’s also probably worth mentioning that I switched characters from Leonard to Donatello. So instead of the dual swords, I was rocking a kendo stick.
I didn’t find New York to be as cool as being in the sewers, but there was definitely more room to roam. One of the cool things you can do in the game is climb everything, which took some getting used to in this VR setup, but I found it pretty nifty. Eventually we found ourselves fighting some solders of the Foot, and combat honestly was a little tough. I wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to be holding the stick like you would in real life, or if I could just hold the stick with one hand and waggle. The latter seemed to work, but I wasn’t sure, because I really struggled whenever it was time to fight. Meanwhile, the person leading me through the demo was just murking dudes as Raphael, so I’m pretty sure it was just me sucking.
It was a really short time with the demo, but I really vibed with my time with the game. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is slated to release this year on the Meta Quest. I don’t have one, nor do I have a PC that could really run the Quest to its potential, but this is a game I’d definitely want to come back to if I had the resources or if it ended up on PSVR2 or something because it was a lot of fun, and I feel like Cortopia really did right by TMNT. For some reason that’s hard for developers to do (I’m looking at you, Mutants in Manhattan) when other developers just have an amazing time doing something cool (yep, that’s you Shredder’s Revenge).
by Danreb Victorio
