Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Training Lair

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Training Lair is a free downloadable title for Kinect, released as a promotional tie-in with the 2014 Ninja Turtles film. Similar to Fruit Ninja Kinect, it asks players to destroy objects on the screen using their hands as weapons. The game consists of five different levels. The first one is a training exercise in which players use just their hands. The following four are each patterned after a specific Ninja Turtle and put each one's signature weapon into players' hands: Donatello's bo, Michelangelo's nunchuks, Raphael's sais and Leonardo's katanas. The game uses an augmented reality concept: players see themselves in the gaming environment as seen by the Kinect camera. Wooden boards come flying at them that must be destroyed for points. Sometimes, more solid constructions appear that take a while to smash to bits. Dangerous objects are shurikens (which must be ducked under) and bombs (which must not be destroyed). Once a level is finished, it's Pizza Time: in this bonus round, pizza cartons (courtesy of a major American pizza chain that also sponsors the film) come flying along. The cartons must be hit with the weapons, and the revealed pizza slices must be caught with the head to eat them. The game features online leaderboards. Reaching certain scores unlocks background photographs inspired by the film and featuring the Ninja Turtles. Players can then have their picture taken with the turtles, wearing a superimposed bandana and holding weapons, and upload the results to their Facebook account.