Turtles return in Mutant Melee

Konami has used its annual "Gamers' Day" event in the States this week to announce a knife-bearer's handful of new titles for various platforms, and amongst them was another title derived from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

Called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Melee, the newly announced PC/Xbox/Cube title is due out in March in the States and features 20 characters from TMNT, with a pair of up-to-four-player modes called Adventure Story and Melee Match. Players will also be able to tackle mini-games including King of the Hill, Last Man Standing, Knock Out and more - with unlockable content hidden away too.

As to why we're being offered another TMNT title by Konami... We can only assume that sales of the previous two TMNT games Konami has put out have been brisk somewhere, because both have been on the receiving end of plenty of maulings in the press for being - based on our own painful memories of the first one - hopelessly outdated 16-bit style scrolling beat-'em-ups with awkward mechanics and tedious level design, despite the cel-shaded visuals always looking quite nice in screenshots.

Speaking of which, we have a few shots of the Xbox version of Mutant Melee for you here.