Monster House is, as you may have picked up, a soon to be released animated feature film, and is based around three kids and a possessed house. The game follows the movie’s plot and other elements closely. Unfortunately a good deal of games based on films, aimed at children, or otherwise, are not up to scratch. Monster House does a reasonably good job at delivering fun gameplay with decent production values. However, it is too lacking in some respects.
The premise behind Monster House is the well worn idea of kids getting embroiled in an adventure involving an odd, spooky house in their neighbourhood. When the kids find out that the house is eating people, and no one believes them about it, they take matters into their own hands. Arming themselves with water pistols, they prepare to take on this threat. Unlike most of these sorts of stories, the house is, in a sense, a main character and has a personality of its own and is in fact, as we find out, quite sentient. After being sucked into the house by its tongue/carpet, the kids find themselves separated and in battle with the many opponents that the unhappy home pits against them.
What's going on, What's going on? It's Chowder.
In the game you take turns playing as each of the three main characters, DJ, Chowder and Jenny. Each has their own personality and little catch phrases that they yell out as they're spooked etc. Some aspects of these are good but some are incredibly annoying. Monster House is one of those games that recycles its characters vocalizations throughout the game. As you play through you may find yourself get extremely tired of Chowder's panicked yell of, "What's going on? What's going on?" On the other hand each of the character personalities tends to give them a slightly different feel when playing one instead of the other. They also each have secondary weapons. DJ uses a flash to stun his foes, Chowder has water balloons that pack a whole lot more punch than the water pistol, and Jenny has a slingshot, which she puts to good use getting through puzzles and fighting enemies.
Monster House is almost a gateway to more adult games, such as Resident Evil 4 and other action/adventure titles. It plays very similarly to these sorts of games, but in a simplified way with no inventory and other clutter to get in the way of the gameplay for the younger audience. The game does a fairly good job at this, although it's simplicity in interface is carried over to a simplicity in gameplay, which does end up lessening its appeal.
The game is one with a heavy focus on combat (for want of a better word when we’re talking about fighting with a super-soaker). The combat is basically solid, if not a little uninteresting. The enemies are all furniture and other household items which the house, in its monstrous way, sends out to do battle with you. These pieces of furniture are well animated and their individual style of attack is quite well implemented, though none of these really offer up enough of a challenge to keep the player tested throughout the game. There are times when you are swamped by enemies. This is about the only time that you have to do anything more than simply hitting the X button repeatedly. The variety of enemies is also incredibly dull and this leads to one area feeling like the next, adding a tediousness to the game which, if there were a greater assortment of foes, may not have been as apparent.
Don't worry Jenny, it's lights out for this guy.
One other issue with the combat is the camera. As a result of you being able to 'lock onto' enemies, both in a targeting sense and camera sense, there are times when it is difficult to see what is going on around you especially if your enemy is around a corner or behind an item. This is a minor annoyance however, and is thankfully a reasonably rare occurrence.
There are a couple of very simple puzzles which should be reasonably easy for those of the intended age group to solve. The items that can be interacted with, or picked up, sparkle so as to alert you to there presence. This is a nice feature for kids who are less likely to be happy searching around for the solution to the puzzle at hand. Overall, the game does not require a great deal of cerebral acrobatics from the player. A larger amount and variety of puzzles could have broken up the action a little better.
There are sections scattered throughout game where all of a sudden a tree will burst through the walls and attempt to grab your character. A Quick Time Event, similar to those in Resident Evil, is then triggered. Unfortunately the game punishes you dearly if you miss pressing the right button and you only get one chance to get it right. For kids, or adults, with little familiarity of the PlayStation controller this can be disastrous. If you miss you will, much to your annoyance, find yourself back at the most recent save point. At times this can be a large portion of the level before the point you were up to. Fail twice and, if you’re anything like us, you’ll be ready to throw the controller through the TV screen. It is just a single button per challenge, but it is possible to make a mistake. Other games deal with this sort of challenge better, in that they put you back just before the QTE, and we would have like to see this implemented in Monster House, rather than having to deal with what feels like artificially extended gameplay.
Who in the world thinks clowns are fun instead of just plain freaky?
The game itself is fairly short and can be finished by a reasonably decent player in about three to four hours. You are rewarded for triumphing over the possessed house with a faux retro, side scrolling, hack and slash game called Thou Art Dead. This is not an overly exiting treasure but does add a little bit extra to the game. Along with unlocking the bonus game as you play through Monster House you can unlock concept art by picking up to monkeys scattered throughout the levels.
Visually the game does a fairly good job of capturing the feel of the film. The art style is cartoony, but atmospheric, and for those that haven't yet got to a stage where they're old enough to play other survival horror games it does a good job of providing a scary atmosphere, even though it is a little kitsch. There are moments when your character freezes as they see a random TV monster or other piece of furniture scurry behind them, which adds to the atmosphere of the game. The character models are close to their big screen counterparts as well, and should impress those kids that have seen the movie. The sound compliments the visuals and adds an extra dimension to the kids’ fear. Besides the characters repeated lines, the voice work is relatively good.
Monster House is not overly challenging, but is definitely a relatively polished game, and with a few additions, and tweaks, could have been great. Kids who end up loving the movie will enjoy the it, but as a result of its limited lifespan and challenge, Monster House will probably not be a game which they think of adoringly as they grow older. This one should keep them occupied for a weekend or two, or for a little while over the holidays but, will not be a game that holds any players interest a long time.
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