A year ago, Southpeak Games released
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia for the XBOX 360 and PC systems to a less
than stellar welcome. The game had a few flaws in controller scheme and a
weakness in story that made for lackluster gameplay. Hoping to remedy the
situation, Southpeak went back to the drawing board and revamped the title,
updating the control scheme and rereleasing a port onto the Playstation 3,
Monster Madness: Grave Danger.
Monster Madness has a great concept
for top-down, button-mashing fun. You are thrust into a city gone mad with a
myriad of monster movie creatures and more zombies ambling around trying to stop
you than you can shake a plunger at. You control one of four teenagers (Zack the
nerd, Carrie the goth girl, Andy the skater dude, and Jennifer the cheerleader
queen) as you battle your way through 20 levels of zombie-filled streets and
crazy-clown covered mall (or maul) corridors, all the while trying to discover
what happened to your quiet little town and why everyone and everything you know
has turned undead. Each player has their own melee weapon preference to help you
beat back the brain-dead zombies.
Along your path, you are aided by
Larry Tools’ and his tricked out trailer full of stuff, who provides you with
new weapons and character upgrades in exchange for monster tokens that you have
collected along the way by dispatching your enemies. You also trade Larry
miscellaneous pieces of junk that you find in toolboxes so that he can construct
various ranged weapons like dual-wielded nail guns (personal fave) or a mini-gun
that shoots CDs. Larry also provides a variety of level-specific vehicles for
you to operate that will aid you in your adventures.
While all this sounds like a
combination for success, Monster Madness: Grave Danger falls short in the
repetitive nature and lack of challenge that it provides the gamer.
The primary Adventure mode will
occupy most of the gamers time. This mode takes you through the story of the
game and is comprised of 5 different levels with 4 zones of battle apiece. This
mode is good in single player but really seems to come to life when you play
with more than one. Adventure mode lacks challenge though, there aren’t real
consequences to dying in a level; you just re-spawn and loose a few monster
tokens. So, pushing yourself to avoid death is irrelevant, just thrust yourself
headlong into battle and button-mash your way to victory. There are a few puzzle
solving quests and a couple of fetch quests in the main story that even the
character Zack pokes fun at, but mostly it’s just hack your way through this
horde of undead and get to the next level: not a high challenge rating. There
were a few glitches in the gameplay that added to the ease of challenge. For
example, there are objects that become very easy to get the enemies stuck
behind, allowing you to just sit back and blast away the way I did during the
final boss fight.
There is also a Challenges mode that
will allow you to unlock new character costumes by playing a series of
mini-games based around levels in the game. These were pretty good, and a little
more challenging to get an A-grade. But most were often to short, simply kill
all these enemies fast, or the controls were wonky a bit. The Versus mode leaves
a little to be desired, mostly packed with arenas that are too small, or get a
little laggy when trying to play in the Online mode.
The big improvement over the
previous version is the control scheme. In Grave Danger, the left stick provides
movement, while the right stick provides instant access to your ranged weapons.
You fire much in the same way that Geometry Wars or Super Stardust are
controlled, pushing the right controller in the direction you want to fire. The
Circle button is linked to your melee weapon, so switching between the two is
seamless and much better than in the past version.
Despite the shortcomings of this
game, there are some great aspects. The story never takes it self too seriously,
ripping on all pop culture icons from old Batman movies to Homestar Runner to
Star Trek. The humor that comes through the writing is really well thought out.
The cut scenes also are drawn in an excellent comic book style that, despite the
awful voice acting, added to the story, and kept me into the game. The graphics
were good as well: the enemies are designed well, the environment is creepy and
adds to the ambience.
Overall, I’d say that Monster
Madness: Grave Danger is a step in the right direction for the franchise with
more room for improvement. It’s a fun game to play if you are looking to just
have some button-mashing goodness and let loose for a while without getting
sucked in to a two or three hour mega quest like in other games.
Review Scoring Details for Monster Madness: Grave Danger |
Gameplay: 6.0
While the control scheme was fixed in Grave Danger, there are still areas
that need more attention. The story line wasn’t that engaging, characters are a
little flat, and overall difficulty wasn’t that hard.
Graphics: 5.9
The comic-style cut scenes are a nice touch to the genre and add a great
feel to the overall style of the game. The environment and creature design is
also good looking. However, the video cut-scenes are a lack luster and don’t
give the next-gen feel at all.
Sound: 5.9
The sound on Grave Danger is good, the score definitely sets the overall
mood for the zombie genre that the game is going for; however, the sub-par voice
acting and the phrases that both the main characters and monsters say throughout
the course of the game can get fairly repetitive.
Difficulty: Easy
Concept: 6.0
This is a basic, top-down, button-masher. The addition of customizable weapons
is a plus to an otherwise familiar playing style.
Multiplayer: 5.5
While the addition of Online Co-op Mode is nice, the overall lag and feel
for the game isn’t great. Playing through the game solo, you can see how this
should be more fun to play with multiple characters however, it’s just not.
Overall: 5.9
Monster Madness: Grave Danger is an improvement over the XBOX 360 title, but
still has some kinks. The story is lacking and I can’t really see gamers being
drawn into it again for a second go around.
