Ready to feel like a teenager again? No? Me neither. But one part of gamers' youths will coming back in the form of four mutated reptiles who wield deadly martial arts weapons.

After a report surfaced yesterday of a new TMNT game, Activision has released info on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows:

Activision Publishing, Inc. today announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™: Out of the Shadows, a new, digital download-only video game inspired by Nickelodeon's new hit animated series, will be available this summer. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a third-person brawler game set in New York City, taking gamers through articulated, true-to-life environments filled with action-packed adventures as Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Featuring an original hyper-realistic 3D-style, gamers can experience four-player online co-op play while stomping out the Foot Clan and unleashing turtle torment on any foe that gets in their way.

With an immersive world, deep character development, and an intuitive, skill-based combat system built around combo-driven action, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows puts ‘Turtle Power' in players' hands.

Dev Studio Red Fly is making the game. Previously, they have worked on several Wii and 3DS titles including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, Thor: God of Thunder and Ghostbusters: The Video Game (which was also on PS2). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows should be out this summer as a digital download on Xbox Live, PSN and Steam.

There's no doubt that ninja are among the coolest video game characters. They do everything with style; running, jumping, fighting, even breathing. These games—mostly platformers—were able to capture this no matter how limited the hardware capacity was; ninja always look awesome.

Ninja Gaiden (NES)

source: HardcoreGaming101

The Last Ninja series (C64)

source: Atari Age Forums

Shadow Of The Ninja (NES)

source: KamilDowonna's LP

Bushido Blade (Playstation)

source: Classic Game Room's LP

Zool (Sega Genesis)

source: bleedingangl2's LP

Shinobi (NES)

source: Shinobi Wiki

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)

source: thecoopmode's LP

Saboteur (C64)

source: Reinhard Klinksiek's LP

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (Playstation)

source: EpicRickyC's LP

Kid Niki: Radical Ninja (Arcade)

source: carlitoshacker's LP

Do you know any other classic games featuring even cooler characters? Show us your picks with visual support.

I was in third grade when I first heard that they were making a live-action version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My tiny little third-grader brain couldn't process it. This was well before I was cynical enough to start immediately complaining about how they were going to ruin everything—I was just gobsmacked at the very notion.

"Hey dude, this is no cartoon," the marketing materials said. Hey dude, indeed.

Over at Comics Alliance, they're rewatching the 1990 cult-classic and writing about the film as they watch. It is a very entertaining trip down memory lane. Remember the part where the foot clan all gang up on Raphael, and he falls to them because he's all alone? Man. Emotions in my third-grade heart.

Hope you are all doing well, and had an enjoyable weekend. Any big plans for the coming week? Feel free to debate turtles, weaponry, or anything else, here or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have good chatting.

There can't be many harder characters to cosplay as than Krang, the wonderfully bizarre villain from the original TMNT animated series. Partly for his size, yeah, but also for the fact he's a talking brain who lives in a giant clear tank right where a human's guts are supposed to be.

Which should make accurate cosplay all but impossible, but no. Here is TVsRobLowe's Krang costume in all its glory, complete with accurate "shell" torso and a "fishtank" that's cleverly designed to look a lot deeper than it actually is.

TVsRobLowe, if there truly are cosplay gods, they are smiling down upon you.

TVsRobLowe's Halloween Costume Contest Entry [The RPF, via Fashionably Geeky]

We've seen plenty of timelines that put video game release dates in order. And recently, we've begun making timelines that put video game news in chronological order. But what about the timelines inside the games? The years over which the game's story takes place? Has anyone ever chronicled those?

Now, someone has. Alex Jaffe, specifically, who has assembled more than 1,200 games into an impressive master video game timeline that tells us, once and for all, when our favorite games took place relative to one another.

It starts waaaaay back with TMNT: Turtles In Time, which jumped the farthest back in time to 2,500,000,000 B.C. (and also gets pretty far up to the year 2100AD). Then, it travels through scads of time-travel games—Chrono Trigger doesn't even go second-farthest back—through modern times (with a lengthy digression in the early 1940s for all those WWII games) all the way up to… can you guess? The Warhammer 40,000 games, of course.

It's a Herculean undertaking that, according to Jaffe, has taken more than two years to get to this point. In fact, the timeline itself loads inconsistently—you might have to wait a bit. Apparently a timeline of this size has tested the strength of the space/timeline continuum. The data below the timeline, however, is always there, and is fun to look through even if the timeline won't load. Jaffe says he's open to feedback, corrections and additions, and that if you see anything he's missing, to please email him.

Update: Awesomely (not really), traffic has brought the timeline down for the time being. Fortunately, you can read the whole thing in PDF form here. I'll update once the timeline is back up and running.

Turtles in Time: The Video Game Chronology Project [Preceden]

Re-born and raised in the sewers beneath the city that never sleeps, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello and Leonardo make a rare above-ground appearance today as LEGO reveals its upcoming line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle LEGO sets.

Cutest turtles ever.

Based on the newly-launched Nickelodeon animated series, the new line (ninja) kicks off on January first. Today LEGO reveals not only the look of the fab four in minifig form but the first playset in the series, The Shellraiser Street Chase. Priced to move at $59.99, the set includes the turtle's Shellraiser van, a pizza truck and five minfigs—a Krang, Leo, Mikey, a Foot Soldier and a character named Dogpound that my wife things is the cutest thing ever (she's odd).

LEGO teased the news yesterday by sending out slices of buildable LEGO pizza. The box it came in was designed and printed by Casey Jones LTD. Sneaky.

Fans at the show will be able to enter a raffle on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for a chance at winning an exclusive TMNT minifig. You have no idea how badly I wish I was there. LEGO will also be showing off the latest Star Wars, The Hobbit and DC and Marvel Super Heroes sets at the show, while I sit here, looking at pictures and holding back the tears.

There have been several different lines of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys since the half-shell heroes first appeared in plastic back in 1989. None of those were half as good as the series hitting store shelves right now.

Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo; the TMNT team is made up of these four brothers, each with their own distinct personality. Toy makers have traditionally depicted these four separate entities in two ways: bandana color and weapon choice. And since each character sported these distinctive differences, there was no need to, say, use a different sculpt for the body, or a different shade of paint for the skin. The heads were done a little different, but for the most part those older toys were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Clones.

Playmates finally switches things up with the latest series of toys, created as companion pieces to the new Cartoon Network Nickelodeon series. I picked up Donatello from Wal-Mart last weekend, figuring I'd only get my favorite character, but when I got him out of the package I knew I had to have the rest.

These are amazing figures. Each has a distinctive head. Each has a distinctive shell (Raph's even has cracks in his). The details are gorgeous, from the skin textures to the shape of the hands. Statues aside, this is the closest an action figure has gotten to Eastman and Laird's original creations.

The rest of the line isn't quite as good. The new April O'Neil is cute, but she's more-or-less a solid piece of plastic with little articulation. Krang is small and strange. The Foot Ninja would be more of a threat if they were half as poseable as the turtles. I probably won't be making any purchases from the line beyond these.

But that's okay. These four are all I need. Great job, Playmates! Almost makes up for the NES game.

Edit: A reader pointed out that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon these are based on debuts on Nickelodeon (not Cartoon Network) on September 29 at 11AM.

A rumor swirling around a few weeks ago pegged Rocksteady Games as the developers on a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. Rocksteady chief Sefton Hill told Kotaku that, while the rumor was amusing, they're doing no such thing.

Dorkly's rewritten the theme song to Konami's 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the NES to reflect the overall quality of the title. Oh come on, it wasn't that bad, was it?

This was the first game I bought (or had my parents buy) based solely on the licensed property represented, and if I remember correctly I was indeed punished for it. I can't recall exactly how many hours I wasted driving around town, getting strangled by kelp, or having to resort to Raphael and his lousy sai as a last resort, but back then it felt like days. The game was incredibly difficult, but back then I didn't care; as long as I was a turtle, I was happy.

Maybe if I went back and played it today I'd change my tune, and it would sound something like this. That's why I avoid doing such things.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can argue all they want, there is only one true answer to the question of who gets the health-giving pizza in Turtles in Time.

That answer, of course, is whoever gets there first. This philosophy got me punched more than once as I was growing up, but I stood by it, which is how I became the type of man I am today: A gigantic asshole.

Dorkly Bits: TMNT Argue Over Pizza [Dorkuly]