Titans, Go!

The Teen Titans are on the move! The superhero quintet is preparing to bring the look and feel of their TV series "Americanime" styling to the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube.

The Teen Titans are a lot older then they look. The long-running DC Comics series, which began in the 1960s, enjoyed an enormous resurgence in popularity with the Warner Brothers cartoon adaptation that ran on the Cartoon Network. Although the 'toon is about to shut down, Majesco is keeping the fires burning.

Boo-Ya!
The Titans' success is attributed to the excellent conversion of the original comic material by concisely simplifying almost forty years of storyline into a few dozen half-hour episodes while keeping all the charm and idiosyncrasies of each character. Teen Titans franchise has always had an enormous focus on character development and that tradition carries over in the cartoon. Additionally, the cartoon series has also developed what is colloquially coined as "Americanime"-- a style of animation that mixes traditional western animation designs with Japanese anime styling.

Similar to the process of adapting the comic book universe to animation format, developer Artificial Mind & Movement has the task of convincingly converting the extremely stylized 2-dimensional cartoon world into 3-dimensional pixel form. However fans will rejoice, as all the familiar characters, venues, and voice talent is present.

All five members of the Titans team will be playable, including team leader and martial arts expert Robin, cyberneticly enhanced strongman Cyborg, occult sorceress Raven, alien transplant Starfire, and the changeling Beast Boy. In the game, they face up against some of their most hated adversarial villains, such as Slade, Gizmo, Jinx, Mammoth, Mumbo Jumbo, Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload.

I Got the Sonic...
Additionally, Titans sports on the fly character-swapping ? la X-Men Legends. Just like that superhero slugfest, you'll be able to switch the character that controls the team by tapping the D-pad at anytime. Titans also supports four-player co-op in Story Mode, where you and three friends can fight together. Additionally, in a Power-Stone-style mini-game called Master of Games, you'll be able to compete in an arena with the computer or with friends in a variety of versus matches, with 36 unlockable characters culled from the Teen Titans universe.

The Story Mode begins when a mysterious game disc shows up on the doorstep of Titan Tower. After popping in the game, the Team is alerted to an impending assault on their home. After repulsing the attack, the Team learns that a pack of their most notorious archenemies are running amuck in the city. Once again it's up to the team of teenaged superheroes to save the day.

... If You Got the Boom
The Titans fighting engine is pretty typical of most button mashing beat-em-up fighters. You have three strikes-- fast, strong, and special (ranged) -- a block, and a throw. The controls are intuitively simple and the fighting system enables you to pick up and learn all the combos during the first 15 minutes of the game. The combo system consists of four basic variations of three chained strikes--simple.

Super moves are initiated by holding down a specific strike button to inflict a charged attack. However, if you rely on your supers too often your Charged Attack Meter will deplete and your super moves will be temporarily unavailable until you can recover the energy by inflicting successive melee blows or by picking up a Charge power-up. Additionally, you can pick up a Full Screen Attack power-up which will allow your character to damage all the characters onscreen in a dazzling array of energy attacks.

It's All Just a Game My Duckies
The preview PS2 build featured a horde of stylized locations which are highly reminiscent of the locales featured in the cartoon, and the build sported enough gameplay variety to keep your attention during the wave upon wave of spawning foes. There were a few instances of collision glitches and weird camera angles during some of the later levels; however, these instances were few and far between and didn't detract from the righteous action.

With a minimal amount of tweaking, Teen Titans could turn out to be a flawless experience, and a must have fix for diehard Teen Titan fans who may be in mourning over the cancellation of the cartoon series.

To check out our interview with Teen Titans theme song performers Puffy Amiyumi, go here:
http://gamepro.com/sony/ps2/games/features/51943.shtml

To view the complete Teen Titans game director interview, click here: http://gamepro.com/sony/ps2/games/features/51942.shtml

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