The story of Turbo Kid takes place at the end of the film of the same name and leads up to the story of the second upcoming film. For this reason, I won’t say much other than you play as The Kid, traveling across a barren wasteland in search of your BMX bike (which you eventually get back), and answers.
Turbo Kid is a side scrolling Metroidvania style game. Much like the film the game is based on, it takes a lot of inspiration from cheesy action films of the 80’s and 90’s. There is a lot of one liners, and a lot of humor to the game that adds a lot of charm, with the writing being very well done and makes for a fun experience. As for the way the game plays, you have mission objectives that you must complete as you progress through the game.
These are linear objectives but some can be completed in any order. The main weapon you have is called the Turbo Glove. The Turbo Glove is not unlike the blaster Mega Man has in its series of games, or that of Samus from Metroid. It has a default shot but can get upgrades to change what and how it shoots; which is a nice thing to see in a game like this. Besides additional secondary or sub weapons, you also have a BMX bike at your disposal, which acts as your major mode of transport and can be summoned by the press of a button.
Though I’ve compared this game to the likes of Metroid and Mega Man, this game definitely isn’t really geared towards kids. The writing is very adult orientated and the amount of gore you find in this game would make the Postal Dude blush.
Turbo Kid features a pixelated like graphical appearance. The graphical style of the game makes it feel like something you would find on the Super Nintendo or Genesis, which fits nicely with the time period the game is shooting for.
Despite it’s graphical appearance, the game does seem to be a bit taxing on my mini PC that is using an integrated graphics card. This causes the performance of the game to dip at times, though not to the point it’s unplayable. The only instance I had it slow down to the point it was noticeable was in large open areas with lost of enemies or animated components on screen. I would have liked to see there be an option to adjust the resolution of the game but sadly, there isn’t a means to do this. Where most games have the ability to adjust the resolution, Turbo Kid defaults to whatever your resolution is that Windows uses. So if you’re running at 2K or higher, the game will run at that resolution with no option to scale it down. To it’s credit, you do have the option to play the game in full screen, border-less, or in windowed mode, but none of these options allow you to adjust the resolution of the game. I think this is a huge oversight and should have been something that was implemented as it seems like basic feature that was just forgotten about or they were just too lazy to implement.
Just like it’s film counterpart, the music in Turbo Kid is outstanding. It really captures the essence of the 80’s and 90’s era of music and action movies. At the same time being period accurate, it does a good job of staying in the confines of a game. What I mean by that is that although some tracks offered in the game sound like they would be directly pulled from a film, it still does have those 16-bit style tracks too. Auditorily, the game does a great job of knowing it’s a game and blending the mediums of video games and film in a unique and surprising way.
The only thing that I think this game is lacking in the sound department is the use of voice acting. I think that if they would have brought on the original actors from the film to voice the lines and get others to voice the NPC’s, that it would have added to the experience. This would have solidified it to be a true trans-media experience and would have been better than just the inaudible sound of text appearing on the screen in dialogue boxes that vaguely resembles someone speaking.
Turbo Kid is one of those games that is just a fun to play and is rather a unique experience. The game does it’s best to bridge the gap between both films and I think that it’s both neat and kinda problematic. As a fan of the first film, playing this game was amazing and I really enjoyed it a lot. It worked well to tell the events of what happened after the film and leading into the second one really makes me want to watch the next film in the series. This is what makes the game unique and fun.
The problem with this is that it’s a double edged sword. As cool as it is to have a game bridge the gap between movies in a franchise, it offers nothing for those that have never seen the film. So those that have never seen the film are left lost in the story and could find themselves only playing it for the fact that the gameplay and mechanics of the game are awesome and fun.
Some people may be okay with this but there may be others that feel alienated because they don’t know the story the game tells from the start. It would be best if the game would offer a recap of the first film or a warning at the start to say something to the affect of go watch the first film, then come back and play this awesome game.
I am not saying that if you haven’t seen the film, don’t play the game. I think both fans of the film and fans of the Metroidvania genre will both find enjoyment with this awesome piece of trans-media. There should have just been a warning or recap included with the game for those that have never watched the movie. This way, they would have a better grasp of the story the game is telling as it is a continuation of the movie after all. With the console release of this game on the horizon, let’s hope this is something that is included in those ports and patched into this Steam release.
Despite the negative aspects I’ve laid out on the table, the good qualities of this game far out-way the bad ones. I would definitely suggest checking this game out if your a fan of Metroidvania games and cheesy action films.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.