Monster Madness (Need I say more?)

As I mentioned in the Waiting for Fallout 3 blog, I mistook Monster Madness for what may have been a great homage to Zombies Ate My Neighbors, minus the fun, satire, or atmosphere. I brought it home, popped it in, and tossed my wife a controller.

"What the hell is this?"

"Monster Madness, reminds me of Zombies Ate My Neighbors."

"Oh, cool!"

But it wasn't. What. The. Hell. It's basically like this;

Take a great genre, take a great system, and take supremely sub-par graphics, gameplay, horrendous voice-work, and generic, cardboard cut-out characters and what do you have? Monster Madness. We played, no, toiled through the first level and were left with a bad taste in our mouths.

The controls were inaccurate at best. I'd like to know who's idea it was to control the character in a top-down button masher with two analog sticks, but it was stupid. It's annoying, who the hell wants to aim where you're mashing the buttons?

As far as the graphics and gameplay? Normally I can look past that for the good gameplay factor, but even if the graphics were outstanding, it wouldn't save the gameplay. It's tepid and stale at best. It's been done many times over and many times better by its predecessors.

The level design is impossible, there's a vague reminder arrow that is supposed to show you where to go. Pssh. Whatever. I spent ten minutes running backwards, sideways, and upside-down through the level before I realized I had to jump over a hedge just to get to the other side of a police cruiser. What the hell?

Dear Jesus, the next time someone makes a top-down button mashing monster slaying hack-n-slash and it sucks, please, please, please borrow my soul from Bethesda long enough to get them to make it well as a favor to me. Besides, you owe me one. You still haven't returned my copy of My Cousin Vinny widescreen DVD.

I'm Kyle Ruppel and I give Monster Madness .5 severed heads out of 5.