I grew up watching Scooby-Doo every afternoon and always enjoyed the cartoons, despite the fact that the cartoons were the same ones every time. The premise was always a story-driven mystery, so it makes sense that THQ would produce an adventure game this time around, instead of a platformer as previously. The result is an adventure that faithfully captures the true essence of the Mystery, Inc. gang in all their quirkiness and humor, but somehow misses the mark slightly in terms of actual fun.
The designers did an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of the old Hanna Barbera cartoons. The characters’ voices are just right, and the quips and canned laughter are exactly as I remember them. The actual characters look a bit odd, due to being rendered in 3D, but players will soon get used to their appearance, although I do believe that cel animation would have been a better fit.
The game is divided into six episodes, each of which has a number of goals for Shaggy and Scoob. These goals include finding sandwich ingredients, which unlocks mini-games, capturing all the ghosts in an area, finding keys, and other like tasks. Some of these goals have to be completed to finish the episode, but some do not. Scooby and Shaggy will spend most of their time collecting powerups and clearing ghosts from rooms.
At first, it seems an easy job to run around and capture the ghosts with the handy “Tome of Doom”, a book which when opened, sucks the ghosts into it by requiring players to rapidly tap the control button that corresponds with the button shown on the screen. However, soon it becomes apparent that this is easier said than done. Time after time I opened this tome, and tapped away at the correct buttons, only to have the ghost get loose, sucking Shaggy’s and Scooby’s life force and Tome power while escaping. It would only take a few times of this to completely weaken these characters, which then forced me to begin again at the most recent save point, as the powerups were often far away down the maze-like rooms. Not fun.
Another problem which detracts from the gameplay is the awkward movement of Shaggy and Scoob, who run diagonally instead of straight. This tends to make them both run into walls and get stuck in corners. The camera could have been better designed, as well, and oftentimes moving the yellow control stick doesn’t rotate the viewpoint a complete 360 degrees, but only moves slightly.
The sound effects and music fit the game well, and enhance the feeling of starring in a Scooby Doo cartoon. The designers did a great job of bringing the show to life for the console, and the music and effects add to the overall experience splendidly.
But, ultimately at issue here is the gameplay, which is the meat and drink of any game. If the game ain’t fun to play, no amount of quality dialogue, graphics or sound can save it. The frustration of repeated dying when attempting to capture the ghosts makes this game drag on, and there just isn’t enough variety in each of the episodes, despite having a few mini-games scattered throughout. This game was designed to be easily accessible for kids as well as adults, but most kids are going to give up before finishing the first episode. A valiant effort at bringing Scooby-Doo to life on the console, but one that falls short of the mark.
Gameplay: 6
What should have been fun ghost-busting quickly turns into frustrating tedium as the ghosts keep escaping, sucking Scooby’s power enroute. This in turn leads to many restarts at save points, which is never my idea of fun.
Graphics: 7.5
The look of the overall game is good and captures the cartoon’s feel nicely, but the 3D characters are a bit odd appearing. The backgrounds could be a bit sharper than they are, but are comparable to several other games of this type for the
GameCube.
Sound: 8
The sound and music are easily the best part of this game.
Difficulty: Medium
What should have been easy becomes less so because of the difficulty in capturing ghosts.
Concept: 7
A typical adventure game on a console that is adequately presented, but could have been better designed in terms of gameplay mechanics.
Overall: 6.5
I enjoyed playing Scooby-Doo: Mystery Mayhem for the first thirty minutes or so, but my enjoyment quickly turned into boredom as I restarted at a certain save point over and over again, due to my “scare” power meter running out every time a ghost ran over me after escaping from my attempted Tome catching. The mini-games were fun enough, but in and of themselves weren’t enough to raise this game from the crowd.
