The Hollywood Byte #59: TMNT's Kevin Munroe

The man behind the new revival of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--this time in full CGI glory--is familiar to gamers. Kevin Munroe spent years developing videogames like Shiny Entertainment's Earthworm Jim, MDK, and Wild 9 and Midway Games' Freaky Flyers before going to Hollywood. He also worked with Ubisoft on the new TMNT videogame, which is available for Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, GameCube, PSP, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance.

"On the videogame side, I wish I could have been more involved," said Munroe. "We supplied them with all of the assets. We gave them the environments, characters, script and sound bites. We had a meeting very early on about what I thought the movie was about, which is family and teamwork, which ended up working really well with the game engine. Other than that, I got so swamped with the movie. All of the plans about getting more involved with the game and kicking ideas back and forth all went out the window."

Ubisoft did send Munroe an Xbox 360 dev kit, which has allowed him and his kids to play through the game. He said although he doesn't benefit from plugging the game, both he and his kids think it's a lot of fun to play.

"When you play the TMNT it's like playing the movie," said Munroe. "I mean it still looks like a game and it will probably be a while before you can really get away from that, but I think it'd be so much fun to have the tools they have at their disposal today and to work in games again. I love that you can create a believable world today in videogames and make it more immersive then it ever has been."

Munroe believes fans of the comics, the original movies and his new CGI update, which features the voicework of actors Laurence Fishburne, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Patrick Stewart, will enjoy the exploration of the world through the Ubisoft videogame.

"We go all over the place in the movie and it feels like you actually service a lot of areas," said Munroe. "But the idea of seeing what it would be like as a character to jump through the jungle. It takes that sort of visceral experience a step further. My kids were freaking out about it. It was cool to see them feel like they were playing the movie. It's a trite thing to say, but I could feel it when I was playing the game. It's the first time I ever felt like that promise was carried through."

Munroe said that his background in videogames actually helped him during the CGI film's 28-month creation, especially when it came to budgeting for polygons.