Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Monsters vs. Aliens

1. Official Site
2. Platform: 360
3. Publisher: Activision Blizzard
4. Developer: Beenox
5. Release Date: 03/24/09
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mitch Youngblood

A long time ago in an elementary school not too far away, there sat a young boy with an overactive imagination. He frequently dismissed what the harsh old hag of a teacher had to say and instead took solace in the exquisite drawings he was capable of. He was enamored by the idea of crafting a dungeon so remorseless, so devious, and so brutal that no hero would ever be able to escape it.

What lay at the heart of the dungeon didn’t matter to the young lad. The sole reason for the drawings was to develop a universe so intricate in detail down to the last spike that anyone who walked into it would be doomed. The boy marveled at his creation, reveled in the extent to which this world unto itself existed. It truly was something to behold because it accounted for everything except one thing the boy could not understand. There needed to be people, or in this case a hero, to journey into the dungeon and experience it. The boy’s sole focus on the detailing of the world was at the expense of those who might populate it, and in his childish glee at his own brilliance he utterly ignored this vastly important detail.

My biggest complaint with the film Monsters Vs. Aliens is that it felt like it was designed by that kid. The universe of the film includes a detailed sequence where General W. R. Monger leads the newest captured monster, the 49 and ½ foot tall woman, through the storage facility where the other monsters are held. The size and breadth of this facility is staggering to say the least, but that’s as far as the story takes it. That’s it. I sat there waiting for some joke or other reason to keep watching, yet nothing happened. For four minutes of screen time, nothing happened.

It reminded me of that child’s drawing because here was a textbook case of blowing a golden opportunity. You have a film called Monsters Vs. Aliens yet there are very few monsters (uninteresting ones at that), a single alien, and nothing funny happens. Ever. Even the obvious jokes fall on deaf ears because they either aren’t funny, or fly right over the targets’ heads (no one in the demographic audience for this film knows what the theme to Beverly Hills Cop is, or even what that movie is about). So how does this translate to the game?

The game is a carbon copy of the movie in more ways than one. It is lifeless, lacks the funny big time, and squanders any reason to play this. I joked when I exited the movie that if anyone ever wanted to see how you let a once in a lifetime opportunity like this slip away, then watch Monsters Vs. Aliens. Or play the game because outside of a few story extensions, it is the same empty bag.

One positive for Monsters Vs. Aliens is that it has lots of flashing bright colors and is, generally, a very cheery game to look at. The detailing in the game world is extensive to say the least, with the alien ship later in the game being a particular standout. On those missions you play as BOB, a riff on the blob, and one of his abilities is sticking to walls. It sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but the way his levels bend and shift around him causes your perspective to shift with it. Simplistic gameplay it may remain, but the visual aesthetic of BOB stuck to a rotating floor that spins through the air like a demented corkscrew is superb.

The developers had a terrific attention to detail with the characters as well. Susan (the 49 ½ foot woman) essentially moves like a roller derby contestant courtesy of two vehicles strapped to her feet. She uses the wheels on each to move quickly, and I swear during some levels I could see sparks fly. That may have just been me, but if that was in the game it was very well done. The other characters (both allies and hostiles) brim with personality just from their appearance alone.

But then they speak.

“Monsters Vs. Aliens” features the same cast as the movie, which is great except they remain on the same level of inanity that the film does. For example, the great Will Arnett voices The Missing Link as a frat boy on his way to the latest kegger. Yet every character refers to him as The Missing Link. Don’t see what I’m getting at? Then try this actual exchange from the game:

“The Missing Link! The Missing Link!”

Or this one:

“Quick The Missing Link! Destroy it!”

It grows stale right away. These are supposedly characters that have been together through thick and thin for a number of years yet no one thought to come up with a nickname for The Missing Link? How about just Link? That would open a running gag about him knocking “The Legend of Zelda” like so:

Professor: “The Missing Link! Quick! Destroy that missile before it destroys us! Hurry Link! Hurry!”

The Missing Link: “Sure thing Doc. Just let me grab my master sword and boomerang and I’ll get right on that.”

See? Not that hard. But it isn’t just the repetitious nature of the voice acting that grates on the nerves, nor is it the bland dialogue they dutifully recite. The sound effects are equally lifeless and display an utter lack of enthusiasm on the part of the development team. Weapons sound like little more than pop guns, explosions are limp, and the only sound effect worthy of note are the car alarms that sound when Susan stomps over them during her missions. But even that gag grows stale after, oh, the third mission where it happens exactly the same as in the prior missions.

The controls are pretty basic for Monsters Vs. Aliens so as not to confuse the audience. Each monster has their own specific attacks and moves to fight off the alien menace. For example, Ginormica (aka Susan) glides on her footwear of choice like an outsized version of Rollergirl. This enables her to ride rails (ala Ratchet & Clank) as well as move quickly to tackle larger enemies. The game also gives you numerous on screen prompts on what buttons to hit when which spells out the controls during the (over)extended first level.

The Missing Link has more fighting options available because he’s the primary combatant of the crew, which is ironic considering the gag in the movie was how useless he was despite his bluster to the contrary. He can perform leap attacks, throw enemies into one another, and more. As for BOB, he targets enemies for a machinegun style rapid fir attack, or he eats someone or some thing only to be able to regurgitate on command. All of this is very basic, and very easy to understand especially because the cues never seem to turn off unless you specifically go into the menu to do so.

The player assumes three roles in Monsters Vs. Aliens – Ginormica (aka Susan), BOB, and The Missing Link. These three are nods to the 50-foot tall woman, the blob, and the creature from the black lagoon respectively. Therein is where the creative use of these characters ends because the remainder of the game is destroying everything that moves. Usually whatever moves is robotic which leads one to believe the developers decided to conscript a bunch of Ratchet & Clank leftovers for their game so they could make the deadline.

I sound overly snarky in regards to this, so please allow a slight digression to explain myself. I grew up with the old monster movies of the 1930s onward. Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Them, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms are all etched onto my soul. These people and films are terrific memoirs of a time long passed by, and the inspiration to pit several of the monsters from this era again an invading alien force is sheer genius. But the film fails spectacularly to live up to the premise because it simply doesn’t do anything remotely creative with it.

I actually pity the developers because that’s the canvas they had to work with – a film so lacking in spirit that it may as well have been developed by the Saturday Morning Cartoon Farm Team™. The game, as a result, hurls groups of foes at your characters to destroy then tosses more enemies at you and then the level is over. Then you play as BOB and have to go through a maze of some sort before taking control again of one of the two destructive characters.

You know trouble is brewing when you snap awake and realize that at least you had the foresight to pause the game before passing out. Then again, that may have been from the ridiculously long load times in between missions followed by lengthy cutscenes before yet more load times.

Where the game grows repetitious is in the first mission which finds the monsters trying to escape from the government facilities run by General Monger. Everything the game has to offer is right here in essentially a giant training exercise. Unfortunately, playing through the rest of the game is little more than an extension of the opening. If you don’t like some of the opening missions, then you sure won’t like it when you play the same ones later only they take three times as long to complete.

Monsters Vs. Aliens is bland and uneventful, despite the constant enemy attacks and explosions. One would think based on this philosophy that by simply hurling things at the screen often enough, entertainment must surely follow. This would be incorrect. The game fails to entertain much as the film does for pretty much the same reason – an inventive premise is left to waste on the floor, ignored utterly in favor of sub-par writing and bland ideas that in no way follow through on the initial idea.

In short, the game is not worth picking up.

Games like Monsters Vs. Aliens are painful to write about because they are so uninspired. Of course, with such weak source material to draw on and a short time frame in which to draw from it, one has a harder time expecting greatness. That being said, the game is boring, lifeless, tedious, and a chore to slog through for veteran gamers.

For the gamers in the E10+ category this title targets, have fun throwing the controller in frustration at the jumping puzzles. Your skillset will improve over time, but it may not be to the level some of the challenges require. This title misses so many of the marks it aims at, one would think the law of averages would dictate at least one successful hit. Unfortunately, such is not the case and this game, like the film its based on, is best left on the shelf gathering dust.

Gaming Trend Score

64

1. Graphics: 90
2. Audio: 70
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 50
5. Value/Replay: 40
6. OVERALL:64