Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem – XB – Review

Kids today.  You’re so
lucky and in most cases you don’t even realize it.  Back in the day, besides
having to walk to school five miles uphill both ways, through six feet of snow
even in the summer, fighting off lions and bears, we didn’t have such cushy
luxuries such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Nick Toons, DVD’s, and VCR’s.  We
didn’t even have, !GASP! , remotes.  We had to get off our couches of stone to
flip through our channels, all three of them, but what we did have was Saturday
mornings.  Back in the day, Saturday morning was an event.  It was the only day
of the week we had cartoons.  There was no sleeping in until the middle of the
afternoon, no; you were up at the crack of dawn to get your weekly fill of
cartoon goodness.  And the crown jewel of Saturday morning?  Scooby-Doo.  You
missed Scooby-Doo and your entire week was ruined.  And I’m not talking about
these new fandangled animated Scooby movies with “real” monsters, nor was it
anything like the high-falutin’
Hollywood
movies.  No, it was classic Scooby, the way it ought to be and that’s the Scooby
this game tries to recapture.

In the game, you control
Shaggy and Scooby through various environments that would be right at home in
the classic Scooby universe, while the rest of Mystery Inc. venture off on their
own “trying” to get to the bottom of whatever craziness is going on.  But we all
know what Fred and Daphne were off doing; “wink, wink”.  Periodically you’ll
cross paths with Velma, who offers the same advice repeatedly, but for some
reason, you never see Fred and Daphne as you explore, but they’re always present
once the mystery is solved.  For the most part, Scooby and Shaggy are always
together, but you do have the option to switch control between the characters at
will.  There is no real benefit of switching characters beyond the fact that
you’ll sometimes come across holes in which only Scooby can fit through.  Beyond
that, both characters control exactly the same.

As you play the game,
you’re given a number of objectives to complete in order to complete the level.
These objectives generally range from finding a way in or out of a specific room
to clearing a certain area of prescribed baddies.  You’ll also come across
various clues and different ingredients for a sandwich.  Surprisingly, at least
in the case of the clues, these things have no bearing on the completion of the
levels.  Finding all of the clues or the pieces of a sandwich merely open up
mini-games and various pieces of the art gallery.  It would have been nice,
being that Scooby-Doo is all about solving mysteries, had you had to use some
deductive thinking in regards to the clues in order to solve the mystery,
because there really isn’t a whole lot of gameplay to be had here.

The gameplay amounts to
simply guiding Scooby and Shaggy around the environments looking for ways in or
out of areas.  There are no special moves, nor even any platform jumping to be
had here.  The combat in the game amounts to opening up a special book, “The
Tome of Doom”, and trying to suck ghosts into it by repeatedly pounding whatever
face button shows up on the screen.  Beyond that there is a mild stealth element
built into the game, but in most cases it is either useless or easier just to
avoid it all together.  You can pull the trigger to make Scooby and Shaggy
tiptoe, supposedly so the baddies don’t see or hear you, but my experience was
that they see and find you regardless.  One aspect of the “stealth” aspect that
does work reasonably well is the costumes.  Periodically you’ll come across
costume chests where our heroes can change into level specific costumes and the
baddies will ignore you, but that’s about it.  It should also be mentioned that
there are no deaths in the game.  What would normally be your health meter is a
“scare” meter, which depletes every time Scooby and Shaggy are frightened, which
is every time they are touched by a baddie.  You can easily replenish this meter
by eating the Scooby snacks scattered abundantly through the game.  If you’re
meter should be depleted, you start over at the last save spot, represented by
cameras that are placed strategically through the levels.

It would seem on the
surface that the developers made this game with the very young gamer in mind,
but the problem is, it may be too difficult for the youngster, and too
derivative and boring for the more advanced.  There are no maps whatsoever in
the game and it becomes maddeningly easy for you to get your characters lost.
You are supplied with a compass, but it really does little to help, and how many
young children are going to understand how to use a compass to begin with?  Many
of the environments feature long, winding paths that have several branching
paths leading elsewhere or hallways that are viewed like a sidescroller with
numerous doors that lead to more hallways that look like the one you just left,
making it very difficult to determine where you are headed.  On the very first
level I got trapped in hallways such as these and it took me over thirty minutes
of trial and error before I could finally get my bearings.  Another aspect that
may be too difficult for the younger gamer is the various fetch quests.  Take
for example the “Mayhem at the Movies” level, which is the second level.  You’ll
find yourself in a vast “movie-set” with several paths and several locked doors,
that all look the same, in which you must find specific keys for each door.  Not
only must you run off to other areas to find the keys, but then you must also
find your way back, and to the corresponding door.  This creates a situation
where you must backtrack through an area several times just to progress to the
next room.  It’s the type of gameplay that proves to turn off the experienced
the gamer and intimidates and or frustrates the younger gamer.

On the graphical and
aural end of the spectrum, things fare much better.  The graphics do a great job
of recreating the classic look of the Scooby-Doo cartoons, albeit in three
dimensions, which helps in capturing the unique “feel” of the show.  You’re not
going to find anything jaw dropping about the graphics here, but neither would
you in the cartoon, which for me at least, is a positive case of less is more.
Too much graphical power and you would lose the look and feel of the source
material.  Now if the game were based on the new movie, then it would definitely
be a different case, but it isn’t.  The character models are rendered really
well, with nice, smooth edges and the environments are suitably rendered to
mimic the hand drawn look of the cartoon.  The animation is also very well done
and authentic looking, staying true to the source material.  Shaggy walks in his
slouched over, bad postured manner and Scooby has all of his classic gaits from
feigning bravery with his head held high and chest out to his frightened head
down and tail between his legs look.  The sound is also well done, with the
developers having evidently used the voice actors from the new cartoons or
people that sound remarkably like them.  The lines are delivered just as they
would in the show, giving the gamer the impression that they are playing through
an episode of the show.  In a really nice touch, that I especially appreciated,
as would any fan of the originals, is the inclusion of the cheesy, old school
sounding laugh track.  Anytime someone from the gang delivers their “one-liners”
or something funny happens on screen, you hear the laugh track in the background
as if a studio audience is viewing the game.  It may not be much, and it may
sound stupid to you young whippersnappers, but it has a nice “attention to
detail” factor.

In closing, while I would
love nothing more than to love this game, I just can’t.  It seems to suffer from
an identity crisis in that the game can’t make up its mind if it wants to be for
young children or the experienced gamer, which causes the game to delve too
deeply at times into the frustrating and or boring, being suitable for neither
gamer in the end.  If the developer had stuck with one ideal over the other and
committed to it fully, then this game certainly had the potential to be
something really special.  They’ve done a bang up job of recreating the sights,
sounds, and feelings of the classic Scooby universe, but this is a game, not a
show, and as a game it features some fatal issues.  Diehard fans and gamers may
want to play through it for the nostalgia factor, which as I’ve said is really
great, but the rest will want to rent first.

Review Scoring Details for Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem on the Xbox

Gameplay: 5
There’s not a
whole lot here and what is here quickly gets very derivative for the experienced
gamer and too hard and confusing for the young gamer.

Graphics: 7.7
The graphics are
really great at recreating the look and feel of the source material.  There’s
not a lot of “fireworks” to be seen, but it’s patently obvious that the
developer chose to recreate the look of the cartoon, which they did very well.

Sound: 8.5
From the voice
talent, to the moans and groans of the bad guys, to the laugh track, everything
screams (literally and figuratively) Scooby Dooby Doo!

Difficulty:  Medium
This category
really deserves two scores.  Easy for the experienced, hard for the
inexperienced.

Concept: 8
Lovingly
recreating the sights and sounds of a beloved franchise, without adding to it
just for the sake of adding to it, is kind of refreshing in my book.

Overall: 6.0
A game that
certainly recreates the authentic look and sound of classic Scooby Doo, that
suffers from not knowing what it wants to be.  It has the potential to be a
really great game franchise for the developer, the building blocks have all been
laid, but the gameplay and execution this time around, keep it from succeeding.
Die-hard fans might want to play through it, but everyone else should approach
with Scooby and Shaggy like caution.