|
|
|
Monster House Review |
|
|
Written by Andy Savva
|
|
Saturday, 12 August 2006 |
Monster House is a movie tie in released by THQ. The film has been popular with the kids but will the game be as successful?
Monster house is third person shooter from THQ. The game is a movie tie in with the film also called Monster House. Now from past movie tie in people have grown to see and know that most movie tie in games are poor, lack good gameplay and fun, but every once and a while the odd movie tie appears which makes people stand up and notice, games like Spiderman 2 and King Kong for example, now you ask, is Monster House one of these Movie tie ins that work? The answer is.....no.
From the moment you boot up the game you notice the bland and boring menu. The game has no multiplayer mode so playing with your mates is a no go zone. After you make a new file and start playing the game you treated to a plain cut scene, which basically lays out the game for you. There are 3 main characters in the game which you take control of. They are DJ, Chowder and Jenny each beholding there own unique skills. DJ holds a camera which can blind enemies for a few seconds while Chowder has water balloons which he can throw and Jenny has a Dennis the Menace type Slingshot. Despite these different types of weapons each characters main weapon is a umm...Water gun? Yup Water guns and each character has one, the slight difference is the way each character fires the gun. The enemies you will be fighting range from chairs to books to spooky self playing pianos. Now these 3 knew something was iffy about the house and so went to investigate, after being caught by the police, the house came alive and sucked them into the house including the police car, from then the 3 characters are separated into different parts of the house. The character you mostly play with is DJ, while Chowder and Jenny are just in the background.
GAMEPLAY The Gameplay is somewhat boring and dull, it becomes very repetitive very quickly but would be more suitable for kids of a younger age. The types of attack are basic shooting with the water gun and pressing R1 will make you character perform a melee attack. The Camera angle at times can be very annoying and cause you to take damage from an enemy which isn?t neseccery. The basic aims of the each level is to walk through a range of rooms, then very likely find a locked door which then, yep you guessed it, you have to find a key for, this becomes mind numbingly boring very quickly. In the game you can smash cans and vases which sometimes hold power ups, some give you coins which let you play a special mini game in the main menu. It?s an old retro game named "Thou art Dead" in some ways this mini game is better then the main game.
GRAPHICS Graphically the game isn?t impressive, its very plane, the odd effect here and there give you a little glimpse of what the developers could have done if they wanted to. The polished effect makes the game look shiney but its no saving grace.
SOUND Very annoying. That?s being kind. The voice acting makes me wish I was deaf, Sound effects are just repeats over and over again. The house creaking and cracking just gets very boring and to some extent makes you want to mute the TV. The radio music is old 1970's jazz which is alright if you?re into that stuff.
OVERALL Overall the game does have its many cons it does have a few pros, the Mini game is a lovely addition which will give you a good extra few days of fun with it. If you can look beyond the repetitive play, the dreadful sounds and lacklustre graphics you may struggle but will find a short little fun game blasting away evil chairs and books, not forgetting the few boss levels which are also fun. The game in my mind deserves a: 4.5/10 |
|
