Fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand know that the last great video game to come from the franchise was the popular SNES port of Turtles in Time back in 1992. The cooperative beat 'em up was immediately followed by the negatively received Tournament Fighters in 1993, which put a plug in the series till the 2004 movie tie-in for the film TMNT. However, the mixed reviews of that no doubt prompted an enhanced remake of Turtles in Time by Ubisoft under the name Turtles in Time Re-Shelled for last-gen consoles in 2009.

Last year, Activision released a small downloadable game based on the 2012 TV series called Out of Shadows while The Game Bakers released a mobile movie cash grab for the 2014 Michael Bay-produced film simply titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn't very good. Returning back to the television roots of Out of Shadows, Activision is teaming up with WayForward Technologies to publish another Turtles console game called Danger of the Ooze for a Fall release this year.

Players will be happy to know that the game will be a side-scroller like Turtles in Time, only with some cool changes to allow more freedom. For starters, levels will be non-linear to encourage exploration of the vast settings of New York and Dimension X. This will allow for some inventive puzzles that WayForward has quietly stated will spur "creative thinking" from gamers.

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All four turtles will be on hand as playable characters, each with their own unique skill set to match an individual players own gameplay preferences. While details on the swapping system were kept under wraps, Activision did promise that players could alternate between turtles immediately. These are two major changes from Turtles of Time as, in that game, the four mutant brothers were basically re-skins of the other save for their special attack ability and players could only switch to a different ninja if they died.

While New York and Dimension X are open to roam through from the beginning, parts of each will be naturally sealed off from players until they acquire new gear and powers. This obviously hints at an untold upgrade system present in the game that will aid both combat and exploration as gamers gain more experience through beating enemies.

WayForward Technologies is a relatively obscure company that has done work primarily for Nintendo since 1990. While there is low publicity and information about this new TMNT game, it is safe to say that its success could jump WayForward way forward in the gaming industry (pun intended).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze releases later this year for PS3, Xbox 360 and 3DS.