N-Philes

Monster House

Posted August 22nd 2006 by Curtis Brunet.

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Once you do have the proper enemy selected however, the primary weapon of each character does work well. Collectable throughout the game are even upgrades to said weaponry, turning basic water pistols into jet streams and even shotgun blasts. The game also offers hidden monkey dolls to collect (which unlock concept art) as well as game tokens which will allow you to play the Gauntlet meets Super Mario Bros.-style game, Thou Art Dead, though you'd hardly call this a reason to replay the title more than once.

The end sequence itself ends up being a culmination of the game's problems. With a context-sensitive run through the neighborhood, you are constantly barraged with having to press the A, X, and Y buttons to avoid pitfalls and the dangers that surround you. This is followed up by an end-boss battle that completely differs from the way the game is played, wherein the player must control a bulldozer and attack the house (by pulling the R trigger) until it is finally destroyed by a dynamite blast at its core. And herein lies the other problem: this final battle is only one of two boss fights in the entire game - so along with the fact that the developers obviously took all of their inspiration of enemy design from Ikea, it's apparent that depth is not one of this title's strong points.

To be fair, the overall presentation of the title is decent. Still, the graphics of the game reflect a worn-down representation of the computer-generated imagery from the film, with items needed for the player's advancement shown in flashing colors. Besides the unimpressive visuals, the game also suffers from grand camera problems. While the over-the-shoulder camera of Resident Evil 4 worked with its wide-open environments, Monster House fails with this same camera style in claustrophobic corridors and smaller rooms. The camera will get stuck around and in corners and doorways, while not showing the player many of the enemies coming from behind and even in front to attack them. This causes massive frustration and torment when trying to maneuver through small passageways to the end goal. This wouldn't be a large problem as long as the controls were tight, but unfortunately, the controls don't aid the title at all.

Flatline - (play a different video game)

Monster House ends up being your standard game based on a movie. In a time when Hollywood can't quite seem to figure out how to make great movies based on video games, every developer, other then UbiSoft, can't seem to be able to figure out how to create great video games based on films. The graphics and gameplay fall short while the voice acting and ambient sound excel - it's simply too bad it's wasted on such a shoddy experience.

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