Monster Madness - Battle for Suburbia

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Game Information

Developed by Artificial Studios
Published by SouthPeak Interactive
Platform : Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows
Genre: Action & Adventure, Shooter
Age Rating: 12+
Players : Single player and Multiplayer
Additional Contents Provided : None
Release Date - Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows : (NA) 12 June 12 2007, (EU) 22 June 2007

---

Synopsis

The spiritual successor to the campy Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Monster Madness features a cast of high school archetypes brought together when their town, Suburbia City, suddenly becomes a playground for zombies, vampires, mummies, evil robots, werewolves, and other creatures. Viewed from an overhead perspective, the game offers four-player simultaneous action in a variety of outdoor and indoor settings. Nerdy Zack Fowler, cheerleader Jennifer Sweeney, Goth girl Carrie Rosenberg, and skate rat Andy Gomez will team up to use rocket launchers, shotguns, chainsaws, axes, and other weapons to turn the marauding creatures into monster soup and salad. Each defeated monster will drop various collectibles that can be used to craft new weapons and items, and players will even get a chance to pilot hovercrafts, mechs, UFOs, and other vehicles. Monster Madness features a cooperative campaign and an assortment of online multiplayer modes, ranging from a capture-the-flag variant to competitive free-for-alls.

---

Gameplay

The gameplay in Monster Madness is decent. You look down on your character from a birds eye view as you run and save the city from invading enemies. In the game, a lot of enemies spawn at the same time so sometimes you might find yourself over-run before you can get to cover. It would be a good idea for you to try to find a melee weapon or something similar to aid you against dirty ridden zombies and other supernatural creatures. The bosses are really difficult to defeat in the game aswell, especially if there are a couple of them. I had a really hard time trying to kill them on harder difficulties and it seemed impossible. However, you just need to be quite witty with your strategies and your weapons and you'll complete the level in no time. As the game is looked over from a birds eye view angle it sometimes may be difficult to see enemies or power-ups in the corner and sometimes these can determine whether you beat a level or not. Most of the time, your character that you selected at the title screen will talk way too much. When your character talks, he/she will pop up and say their sentence in a speech bubble and go back off your screen. This happens way to many times and it deters you from your objective especially if you're trying to take out a load of enemies and you're looking at what you're character is saying. That's the only problem I seemed to have with the game but other than that the gameplay is good. This game comes with multiplayer as well however this is nothing amazing. A couple of players from around the world battle it out in variants such as Free-For-All and Capture the Flag. This is okay to play if you're getting bored of the single player.

---

Graphics

Graphics in Monster Madness are pretty bad. It seems that not a lot has gone into development with the graphics portion of the game. Once again, as the game is from a birds' eye point of view it's hard to see and mostly everything is pixely. This isn't a good effect and it isn't pleasurable to look at little boxes on your screen. The various different environments that you play in look somewhat realistic but not so much. You play in dungeons, in houses, in the garden and all kind of other environments. These are textured well and it's not hard to tell what kind of scenario and environment that you are in. Your character's clothing in the game is boring and plain and isn't exciting at all. Explosions and gunfire look decent as well but they're not very amazing effects. There aren't any massive explosions which isn't thrilling. They're just small minor explosions that you ignore. I played this game in High Definition as well but it was nothing amazing. Just certain things in the game were a bit clearer than in standard definition.

---

Controls

---

Overall, this game is decent but to be honest it's not amazing. For those of you that like The Sims series then you might want to check this game out. Other than that I wouldn't recommend this game to others. It can be found for quite cheap nowadays if you are looking for a new game to purchase though.

Game Rating : 4/10 (Gameplay is pretty boring and has no real thorough storyline, graphics are mediocre and controls for different characters take quite a while to learn and get use to)