Monster Madness: Grave Danger (PlayStation 3)

CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
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Overall score: 5.0 (2.5 stars)
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Product summary

Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Carolyn Petit
• Reviewed on: 08/27/2008
• Released on: 08/05/2008

Released last year for the PC and Xbox 360, Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia tried to dress up the fun of classic top-down arcade games such as Gauntlet in the trappings of a schlocky monster movie. But a host of issues, including lousy pacing and imprecise controls, made the game itself feel pretty schlocky. Now a revamped version of the game, complete with a new subtitle, is out on the PlayStation 3. But despite a few nice improvements, Monster Madness: Grave Danger is an awkward, tedious game.

A typically chaotic moment from Monster Madness.

The core game in Grave Danger is very similar to that of the original release. It tells the tale of four teenagers--a geek, a skater, a goth girl, and a cheerleader, all as stereotypical as can be--who find themselves fending for their lives against a massive invasion of ghosts, goblins, skeletons, zombies, and countless other denizens of the underworld. The game relies heavily on pop-culture references for its attempts at humor, riffing on everything from Superman II to Homestar Runner, and although it may occasionally get a chuckle out of you, most of the jokes fall flat. But the story isn't of much importance here anyway, given that it only provides the flimsiest of excuses for all of the action, and, really, how much of an excuse do you need to cut down zombies with a gun that shoots CDs? At least the comic-book style cutscenes that the game occasionally employs look pretty good.

When the game begins, you pick your teen and head into the fray. Although each character specializes in a different type of melee weapon, the differences between them are almost entirely cosmetic, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to add some replay value to the game. For a while, you'll find yourself hacking your way through the enemy onslaught with melee weapons such as swords, hockey sticks, and batons, and this quickly gets boring. The combat just isn't varied or precise enough to stay interesting for long, and the enemies are bone stupid to boot. The game tries to make up for this by throwing them at you in large numbers, but this just means that you have to spend more time whaling on the attack button to chop them all down, maybe tossing in an occasional dodge for good measure.

However, before too long the game introduces ranged weapons, which are a bit more fun. Throughout the game, you'll employ a nice variety of ranged weapons, from nail guns to shotguns to flamethrowers, and this is where one of this version's most significant improvements over the original release comes into play. Ranged combat is now controlled with a dual-stick shooter control scheme, and it's such a natural fit for the game that it's a bit mind-boggling that the developers didn't think to include it previously. It's totally intuitive and helps contribute to the old-school arcade action feel that the game is targeting.

Although this improvement is much-needed, it isn't enough to compensate for the game's other lingering issues. Grave Danger, like its predecessor, lacks any sense of pacing, and some battles go on for far too long. One battle on a rooftop near the game's end is positively interminable. And when the game does try to break up all of the hacking and shooting a bit, it frequently does so with a fetch quest that's far less interesting than the combat that it's serving to interrupt. To add insult to injury, you'll often undertake these fetch quests at the behest of a leprechaun whose horrible Irish accent just might be the scariest thing about this game. You'll also encounter numerous vehicle sequences, and though a few of these vehicles, such as a swan boat and mech suits, are mildly enjoyable, most of them are just sluggish and cumbersome. All in all, the game overstays its welcome by a good, long while, stretching its simple gameplay out across 12 hours or so, with each successive level feeling like more of the same. When goth girl Carrie says, in that sarcastic way of hers, "Wonderful, more trudging through sewers and dungeons," you'll know just how she feels.

Driving this buggy isn't as fun as it looks.

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