Shrek SuperSlam – PS2 – Review

They’re doing a great job for kids
with this franchise. The operative word in this review is "kid’s title." While it
may seem a bit repetitive for adults, this is the perfect gift to give your six-
to 12-year old this Christmas. While I have a very childish sense of humor, I
decided to take this one to the pros. I played the game with three other boys,
all between the ages of six and 12 years old.  The next few hours was
laden with numerous giggles, fart jokes and a ton of green fun.

While you can play through the single-player challenges, this game is much
more entertaining in the multiplayer mode. All of the regular characters are back.
You can play as Shrek, Donkey, Princess Fiona (Ogre and Human Style), Puss in
Boots and The Gingerbread Man. However, there are a few more characters joining
the crew this time around. You can also play as The Black Knight, Prince
Charming and an assortment of other characters in the Shrek movies.

In Multiplayer mode, you battle as a team against each other. The whole point
of the battles is to Super Slam each other as much as possible. At the end of
the timed matches, the AI calculates the score and the one with the most hits,
knockdowns and slams is the winner. You could perhaps compare this to a Mortal
Kombat or a SoulCalibur game, but the difference is that in those two, you can’t
knock your opponents out with deadly fart gas. Every time that happened, the
room would erupt in peals of giggling. Each character has their own special
attack and with enough combo moves, you’ll find out what that is. You can
also slam other characters by pulling a WWE move on them and knocking them over
the head with various objects in the arena. Nothing says lovin’ like a giant ham
over the head. 

Speaking of arenas, Shaba did a fantastic job on the visuals. Each arena is a
scene that you’d find within one of the movies. The playing field is beautifully
detailed in a vibrant, colorful, fairytale atmosphere. I asked what the boys
thought of the graphics. They all agreed that they were "cool."  While they
didn’t really care about the graphics, I found them to be the best of all of the Shrek games that have been released.

While playing in the storybook mode, you fight
just like you do in multiplayer. However, there’s a story there. Also, there are
over 200 challenges in the challenge mode for single player.  It’s worth
playing this simply because the cutscenes are hilarious. If you weren’t looking
forward to Shrek 3 before, you will be now! Dreamworks could probably put a DVD
out of these cutscenes alone and I’d buy it.

Gameplay: 7.9
It may get repetitive for adults, but for a kid’s game it is simply
fantastic! The laughter factor alone is worth the time you spend playing it. The
controls are easy to use and the moves are intuitive. The action of the
game is fast paced so the battles don’t feel like they take too long. You can
spend two hours playing and not feel the time slipping by.

Graphics: 7.5
The colorful world is nothing short of wonderful.
Shrek SuperSlam is admittedly the best graphical encounter in the Shrek series
of games. Even with the outdated graphics card of the PS2, it doesn’t leave you
wanting for spectacular visuals.

Sound: 7.9
The voice acting is superb. While it’s not done
by the actors from the movies, it’s very close. The score is also well done. The
sound flows beautifully throughout the game.

Difficulty: Easy
There is nothing in the game that a 6-year-old child can’t handle. The
simple controls for camera and controller are a big bonus. For a non-coordinated
adult it’s not too bad. Between us, if you just mash enough buttons, you’ll get
a slam.

Concept: 7.5
The series of Shrek games just keep getting
better. Activision is keeping the series fresh rather than putting out the same
game over and over again with a different name. 

Multiplayer: 8.0
This is simply the best part of the game. It’s
hard to find a game these days that you really feel comfortable playing with the
kids.  We’ve spent hours together playing this and have had nothing but
loads of fun! It also helps that it’s easy to determine which characters belong
to which player. As stated before, it never gets old bonking someone over the
head with a big ham!

Overall: 7.8
As far as children’s titles go, this one is
absolutely terrific. It takes all of the fighting games like SoulCalibur and
Mortal Kombat and puts them into a witty, harmless game that you don’t feel so
bad about letting them play.  The humor is juvenile (just like I like it)
and the controls and camera angles are really easy to manage. Overall, Shrek
SuperSlam is a really fun game to play. It’s a perfect game not just for the kids, but
for the entire family!