Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia review (Xbox 360)

With a cast of ghost and ghouls that would give the crew of Scooby Doo a run for their money, it’s not hard to imagine why Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia would be an ideal consumption for horror fanatics. Yet, when you do chomp down on this like a ravenous zombie, perhaps even spend a little time chewing the fat, you’ll soon find yourself regurgitating the same old fundamental flaws that should have, like so many of the games’ zombies, been nothing but dust ‘n bones by now. Sadly, Monster Madness is one zombie that chose to rise in the wrong decade.

The Monster Mash

Monster Madness revolves around the survival of a quartet of American highschool students, who find themselves in the middle of an outbreak of monstrous (no pun intended) proportions; zombies, ghosts, demons, imps, giant spiders, witch doctors, zombie dogs, vampires, werewolves, evil clowns, evil granny’s, big foot et all are on the rampage, and it’s up to you to find out what’s going on and put a stop to it. The game wastes no time with the stereotypes either, with you having the choice of controlling one of four social staples - the nerd, the skater, the Goth-chick or the cheerleader.

The game itself is set across numerous ‘acts’, each one containing a variety of different levels for you traverse and ultimately conquer, defeating hordes of undead beasts along the way. Of course, you aren’t completely helpless, as you’ll be able to acquire and utilize a variety of common house hold items as weapons, as well as construct your own by collecting various parts scattered throughout each level and taking them to your friendly do-it-yourself biker fellow, Larry Tools, who turns up at various points throughout your adventure. Character specific weapons are available from the start (such as a hammer or plunger); with each teen able to pull of their own unique attack with it, provided you have enough power charge available.

Zombie’s man, they creep me out

nfortunately, the game’s bread and butter combat is ultimately flawed and uninspired in execution. You spend your time trawling through each location (city streets, houses, construction sites, shopping malls, junk yards etc), mindlessly swiping at your enemies, before moving onto the next location, and repeating the same. There’s no lock on functionality, so you are forced to hammer away at the RT to swing your weapon in hopes of hitting anything nearby. Likewise, dodging and jumping are mapped to the left and right analogue stick, respectively, making anything other than rudimentary running and walking nigh on impossible to pull off.

Rather than feeling remotely compelling, combat generally feels drawn out, repetitive, and incoherently messy. The camera doesn’t make things any easier either, tracking you from an overhead perspective so that you can’t see much of anything unless it’s right in front of you. Problems are only exacerbated further when it comes to actually aiming at your foes, who, by the time you’ve completed a turn, would have circled you twice and are by now chomping down on your rear end faster than you can say Jack the Ripper. As you can imagine, this makes even long range combat a core in its own right, let alone melee. Again, the omission of a target lock-on feature is an absolute crime. Stick all of this in your witches cauldron, stir thing about a bit, add a touch of hammy dialogue, and you have the recipe for disaster.

Like, dude, where’s my Shotgun?

For what it’s worth though, the game’s line-up of enemies deserves credit, with virtually every single horror icon under the sun at some point turning up to attack you as you progress. Their numbers are thick and fast too, come in all shapes and sizes, and are more than often pretty comical to watch. In some cases, the action breaks up and you’ll be forced to defeat a certain number of foes to continue; Still, whether this is used to accommodate a break from the norm remains to be seen, as it’s certainly no more fun that rampaging through the streets. However, certain breaks in the action worthy of note include the ability to drive various vehicles such as buggy’s, boats and more, which offer ample opportunity to relax and enjoy something a little different (oh, and run down hordes of undead in the process – always fun) Likewise, boss fights are quite entertaining and actually require a mild level of intelligence to defeat, although it has to be said the difficulty sometimes ranges from easy to hair-pulling monotony.

The game employs a collectable ‘Monster Token’ system – obtained from fallen enemies - allowing you to purchase healing items, weapon upgrades and construct aforementioned do-it-yourself tools to use in combat. Oddly enough, you rarely even need to enforce these efforts, as your standard weapon proves more than adequate throughout most, if not all of the game. The game itself is pretty lengthy, and each chapter contains just under half a dozen levels to play through. Plus, if you want to up the enjoyment factor (marginally, that is), invite a couple of mates around and team up for the cooperative campaign mode or death match. Sadly, there’s no campaign mode available through Xbox Live, bizarrely, though you can still assemble some friends into one of the other modes available.

Dead and looking good

Aesthetically, Monster Madness evokes an appropriate comic-book feel to it, and boosts some impressive looking creatures and characters, though it is rated 12+ for a reason; don’t expect any exploding heads here. The environments are varied and colourful, with the occasional stand out moment in the form of some moody lighting or water effects. All in all, it’s quite impressive, and the accompanying storyboards are quite amusing to watch. The game’s soundtrack is classically influenced by hammer horror style movies, although the dialogue is nerd-tastic and overall, pretty cringe worthy. Likewise, if you don’t happen to be a spotty, greasy, scrawny bedroom-ridden geek, you’ll more than likely feign ignorance at some of the pop culture references thrown your way. To make matters worse, your character has the irritating knack of repeating the same catch phrases over and over again during gameplay.

Zombies ate my gameplay

Overall, Monster Madness could have been a treat if it were released back in the days of its forefathers (zombies ate my neighbours, for the uneducated) but sadly, today; its flaws far outweigh any heritage. Indeed, while it’s not an abomination by any means, and can provide some mild entertainment (more so on multiplayer mode), it’s by no means worth more than a rent. Make no mistake, if you met this thing down a dark alleyway, you WOULD be scared – it’s shockingly average.