Monster
House is yet another movie-themed game that has been released on all the
consoles. Most of these games are rather insipid and don’t inspire much
enthusiasm, but this effort is actually pretty good. While much of the game
relies on standard dungeon crawling through room after room in this very large
house, it’s well-designed dungeon crawling.
Yep, it’s
called Monster House and its goal is to eat you and your buddies. Bats, bees
and mutant chairs are just some of the enemies that it calls forth. Luckily,
DJ, Jenny and Chowder are equipped with a water gun and camera that will take
out these bad guys with some judicial aiming. These three characters all have
special abilities that allow for differing approaches with their water guns,
and to interact differently with their environment. Jenny can crawl through
small spaces, DJ can climb and Chowder can move heavier items that the others
can not. Players can toggle through the characters at any time. Each character
also has another weapon along with the water gun: DJ has a camera, Chowder a
water balloon, and Jenny a slingshot.
The main
goal of the game is to reach the basement and take out the furnace. However,
in order to get to the basement, certain items have to be found first, such as
blueprints and flashlights. In order to keep up with the current objective,
the kids can talk to Skull via the walkie-talkie. Each room has items that can
be blasted with the water gun to uncover powerups like candy for energy, water
for the water guns and other items that the characters can use. These objects
can also be picked up and thrown at enemies, although good timing is required.
Upgrades to the water guns can also be found.
Most of
these rooms are also replete with enemies, who aren’t horribly difficult to
beat because of any awesome fighting abilities, but can sometimes be hard to
defeat because of the way they’re placed in the room. For instance, many times
when a character first walks into a room, the enemies are right on top of him
before players can react. A few hits, and boom, you’re dead. This wouldn’t be
so bad if the save point was right before the room, but the game only allows
saves in certain rooms, which have to be visited in order to activate a save
point. If players forget to save frequently, this save point can be quite a
ways back in the game.
But for
those who plan ahead and save often, just a few visits to the more difficult
rooms is all that is required to figure out how to defeat the enemies.
This game is
all about dungeon crawling. After awhile, going from room to room and blasting
enemies can get a little tedious, but fortunately A2M has done a great job
making the rooms and accompanying enemies pretty fun to defeat. There are
plenty of logistical puzzles to change the pace a bit, and there is a good
variety of differing baddies.
The game is
attractively drawn. The rooms are designed with lots of detail, and the
characters are richly colored and animated well. One good thing is the
brightness of the game; many times a game that is supposed to take place in a
creepy house would be darkly lit, but that’s not a problem in these rooms.
The music is
one of the weaker features, and is unmemorable. This game should be full of
creepy music!
Overall,
this is a fun and entertaining game. There are lots of goodies to pick up,
which is always a good thing, and the enemies aren’t too difficult to beat,
but aren’t wimpy, either. In fact, this would be a perfect game for all ages
except for the awkward save-game design. Having to save just in certain spots
manually makes it harder on the little guys. Having the enemies all pile on
the character just as he walks through a door is a bit harsh, too, but this
only happens in a few of the rooms. And, to be fair, there is a judicious
amount of health collectibles lying around. Switching between characters adds
depth to the action and puzzle-solving aspect, and really adds to the fun. A
good choice for a summer game!
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Gameplay: 7.5
This is a
well-designed crawl through lots of rooms filled with items to pick up and
enemies to blast. Sometimes the action can get a little tedious, but there is
enough variety and things to do to keep interest until the end.
Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are
very good and show off the GBA nicely.
Sound: 6.0
The music is not
anything like it should be for this type of game.
Difficulty: Medium
The game itself
isn’t hard to play, but the few save options and slight unfairness of enemy
deployment can make things harder than they should be.
Concept: 7.0
There is nothing
new or different, but the treatment is pleasing and well implemented.
Overall: 7.5
A nice diversion,
and one that is better than most movie-themed games. As stated previously,
this is mostly a dungeon crawl, so players who don’t enjoy those types of game
won’t like this one. However, if you do like searching room to room and
fighting frequently, then this game will be a lot of fun. Kids and adults
alike will enjoy playing Monster House.
