Game Play: Monster Madness, Grave Danger

Why exactly Monster Madness requires a subtitle I'm not entirely sure. It's a rework of the 360 title Monster Madness, Battle for Suburbia but not precisely a new episode or experience entirely.

The game follows the basic modern Gauntlet style of gameplay - coop with basic melee and missile attacks, stat upgrade paths and hoards of monsters. There's not a lot of innovation here, but what is here is done in a colorful comic style that gives a light comedic feel to the title.

So far we have a more or less competent title provided you have someone else to play with - a simpler version of Marvel Alliance basically (and in some ways, for anyone who has spent fifteen minutes purging the inventory in that game could tell, that's a good thing). The real problem is that this game has about as many bugs as it does monsters. Twice yesterday the audio just completely cut out from the game. There's no recourse it seems except to restart the game, which can kinda suck in the middle of the level.

Worse, we're pretty certain we glitched a boss fight. Unless, of course, the boss is supposed to just stand in the corner not doing anything while the only items that can hurt it stop producing is how it was designed...

Salt in the wounds is that some of the attempts to change up the gameplay don't entirely succeed. The vehicles are often a welcome change but could really use another pass on the controls. At one point the game needlessly turns into a cheap stealth sneaker except that the camera and controls almost completely force failure on the player.

I'm not saying the game is a complete waste. It's decent coop and cheaper than most other titles. As a rental with a friend it's a pretty safe bet, or if you really like coop games in general it might be worth a buy - but otherwise I'd wait for a patch.