Well if you have seen the movie
Monster House, then in my opinion you saw arguably the best family film this
summer, much more engaging than Cars and more fun than Over the Hedge.
In it, three neighborhood children discover that the local "creepy" house is
exactly what they all thought, evil. So evil in fact that the house is wont to
snatch up anyone who gets too close to it and gobble them up with it’s rug
tongue and front door mouth. It’s a great movie that I won’t ruin if you have
not seen it.
Sooooo, knowing that most game
tie-ins aren’t all that great I thought that regardless, my oldest boy would
still like the game. But before he gets it, Daddy has to play it and to be
honest with you, I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.
The first thing you notice when
you begin the in-game action is that Monster House is a top-down run-and-gun
style game where you actually play as each of the three main children. As you
run from room to room you will use your water gun to shoot up possessed
chairs, plates or whatever is normally found in a house that has become
possessed and trying to beat you up. Now the interesting thing is that as you
go from room to room, you can save your progress which is a miracle given the
fact that you are constantly engaged in battle and other, better games don’t
even feature this ability. It makes it an awful lot easier to take a break and
not have to backtrack very far. Next thing, you can switch on the fly between
characters in order to moving forward through the span of the game. Meaning,
as one character’s health begins to get too low, you switch over to another
one and keep the battle going. Which begs the question, why did they not make
this a multiplayer game? It’s practically tailor made for a co-op style
run-and-gun game like this. Pity.
Being a top-down viewed game,
you use both screens with the map of the house telling where you are and where
to go on the lower screen and the upper screen showing the in-game action. The
stylus is used on the lower screen to direct your shots and positioning while
tapping it and moving it around on the map. A fairly intuitive way to play the
game and in no ways a cheap after-thought from the developers’ standpoint. The
use of stylus is fairly smooth and reacts in a very usable way.
The game doesn’t fully use the
DS’s processing power in terms of graphics, they aren’t bad mind you, but they
are slightly rough around the edges and not as smooth as some other games
currently on the market. However, where the game makes up for this is the
total lack of any slow down when the screen gets busy with multiple enemies
and you blasting away. So it’s almost a fair trade in the graphics dept. What
isn’t a fair trade, is the lack of voice work that the game is completely
lacking; instead of voice work pulled from the movie, we are let down by
having to have to read any sort of dialogue. The music initially is creepy
and seems to be a good fit for the mood of the game, but then it begins
looping and I found myself getting a little tired of it. It was only salvaged
by the game’s actual sound effects, which were well placed and scarily
delivered.
Monster House is a title that can
be beaten in about five or so hours, the house does a good job by throwing a
boss battle at you every 10 or so rooms (give or take), and one could not
complain that the game is boring because it simply is not. So, now that I was
done reviewing, I gave it to my son and let him play it for a while.
Afterwards I asked him about the game. Knowing that he is part of the target
audience, I felt his opinion may help any potential parents out there with any
thoughts on whether this game was good for their little one.
When asked whether the game was
too scary? No, it wasn’t.
When asked what he liked about the
game? He said the different characters were pretty funny, playing as all of
them made the game cool (direct quote).
When asked what he didn’t like
about the game? He said that it was a little tough to control.
When asked who the best Dad in the world was? He
replied it was me. Sorry all you other Dads, it’s now official.
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Gameplay: 7.5
I didn’t have a bad time with it, but my son struggled a bit with the
accuracy of touching one screen to hit something on the other screen. In all
fairness, he is five, but he also beat the New Super Mario Bros this past
week, so he does know how to play games.
Graphics: 7.0
Seeing baddies come streaming into
a room by the boatload and having the game never slow down is great. I could
tell who all of the characters were from the movie and the house is quite
large. There is a little bit of roughness in the character models, but you can
also determine a nice sense of depth while playing.
Sound: 6.4
The sound effects were cool; the
music was a little repetitive and the lack of any voice work really kind of
disappointed me.
Difficulty: Medium
Concept: 7.0
It really isn’t that bad, a movie
tie-in that takes advantage of some of the better portions of the movie and
plot devices that you play through, still missing the voice work though.
Multiplayer: N/A
So sad, this game just screams
multiplayer co-op.
Overall: 6.9
Monster House is a game that I
think will make your 7-12 year old fairly happy. As an adult I found that it
could get a little repetitive, but my son has spent way more time playing and
shows no signs of letting up.
