Monster House

Well if you have seen the movie Monster House, then in my opinion you saw arguably the best family film this summer, much more engaging than Cars and more fun than Over the Hedge.

In it, three neighborhood children discover that the local "creepy" house is exactly what they all thought, evil. So evil in fact that the house is wont to snatch up anyone who gets too close to it and gobble them up with it's rug tongue and front door mouth. It's a great movie that I won't ruin if you have not seen it.

Sooooo, knowing that most game tie-ins aren't all that great I thought that regardless, my oldest boy would still like the game. But before he gets it, Daddy has to play it and to be honest with you, I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

The first thing you notice when you begin the in-game action is that Monster House is a top-down run-and-gun style game where you actually play as each of the three main children. As you run from room to room you will use your water gun to shoot up possessed chairs, plates or whatever is normally found in a house that has become possessed and trying to beat you up. Now the interesting thing is that as you go from room to room, you can save your progress which is a miracle given the fact that you are constantly engaged in battle and other, better games don't even feature this ability. It makes it an awful lot easier to take a break and not have to backtrack very far. Next thing, you can switch on the fly between characters in order to moving forward through the span of the game. Meaning, as one character's health begins to get too low, you switch over to another one and keep the battle going. Which begs the question, why did they not make this a multiplayer game? It's practically tailor made for a co-op style run-and-gun game like this. Pity.

Being a top-down viewed game, you use both screens with the map of the house telling where you are and where to go on the lower screen and the upper screen showing the in-game action. The stylus is used on the lower screen to direct your shots and positioning while tapping it and moving it around on the map. A fairly intuitive way to play the game and in no ways a cheap after-thought from the developers' standpoint. The use of stylus is fairly smooth and reacts in a very usable way.

The game doesn't fully use the DS's processing power in terms of graphics, they aren't bad mind you, but they are slightly rough around the edges and not as smooth as some other games currently on the market. However, where the game makes up for this is the total lack of any slow down when the screen gets busy with multiple enemies and you blasting away. So it's almost a fair trade in the graphics dept. What isn't a fair trade, is the lack of voice work that the game is completely lacking; instead of voice work pulled from the movie, we are let down by having to have to read any sort of dialogue. The music initially is creepy and seems to be a good fit for the mood of the game, but then it begins looping and I found myself getting a little tired of it. It was only salvaged by the game's actual sound effects, which were well placed and scarily delivered.

Monster House is a title that can be beaten in about five or so hours, the house does a good job by throwing a boss battle at you every 10 or so rooms (give or take), and one could not complain that the game is boring because it simply is not. So, now that I was done reviewing, I gave it to my son and let him play it for a while. Afterwards I asked him about the game. Knowing that he is part of the target audience, I felt his opinion may help any potential parents out there with any thoughts on whether this game was good for their little one.

When asked whether the game was too scary? No, it wasn't.

When asked what he liked about the game? He said the different characters were pretty funny, playing as all of them made the game cool (direct quote).

When asked what he didn't like about the game? He said that it was a little tough to control.

When asked who the best Dad in the world was? He replied it was me. Sorry all you other Dads, it's now official.

Gameplay: 7.5
I didn't have a bad time with it, but my son struggled a bit with the accuracy of touching one screen to hit something on the other screen. In all fairness, he is five, but he also beat the New Super Mario Bros this past week, so he does know how to play games.

Graphics: 7.0
Seeing baddies come streaming into a room by the boatload and having the game never slow down is great. I could tell who all of the characters were from the movie and the house is quite large. There is a little bit of roughness in the character models, but you can also determine a nice sense of depth while playing.

Sound: 6.4
The sound effects were cool; the music was a little repetitive and the lack of any voice work really kind of disappointed me.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.0
It really isn't that bad, a movie tie-in that takes advantage of some of the better portions of the movie and plot devices that you play through, still missing the voice work though.

Multiplayer: N/A
So sad, this game just screams multiplayer co-op.

Overall: 6.9
Monster House is a game that I think will make your 7-12 year old fairly happy. As an adult I found that it could get a little repetitive, but my son has spent way more time playing and shows no signs of letting up.