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The four-player, overhead monster bash has been a venerable arcade standby ever since Gauntlet made coin-op partying cool in the 1980’s. Since then, every gaming system has offered up a slew of such titles, and on the PC, Blizzard Software managed to make people believe it was role-playing thanks to Diablo. 16-bit fans might have fond memories of Konami/LucasArts’ Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Now, thanks to South Peak, we can all relive the fun of old school monster killing with Monster Madness.

Zombies Amok! Dude!

Far from a complicated game, the generous among us might call Monster Madness an homage to all things nerdy. It mixes classic B-movie monsters and scenarios with comic book pop art and high school stereotypes. Up to four players can take on the adolescent shoes of either Zach, the beleaguered nerd; Carrie, the apathetic goth girl; Jennifer, the blond flotation device-endowed bimbo; or Andy, the stoner skater boy.

One fateful night, all of our would-be heroes end up hanging out at Zach’s house. Just as the situation is turning into a full-blown social nightmare for poor Zach, all hell actually breaks loose outside. Zombies start crawling up from the depths, trashing the place as zombies are want to do, and it’s up to between one and four of the youngsters to take care of business.

Layin’ it Down, Classic-like

The gameplay is strictly top-down old school, and pretty uninspired at that. You run around the well-rendered, mostly suburban landscapes, hacking, slashing, exploding, and shooting the legions of the undead. Each character has a particular main weapon (sword, plunger, etc …), but aside from their look, there are really no practical differences between the characters. Each character can use anything they pick up or purchase from the weapon’s dealer, and you can collect junk all around the levels to create new weapons with—nail guns, electric shockers, and other amusing variations on typical shooter weapons.

The combat is as basic as possible. This is a button basher through and through, but the dual-analog controls are decent overall. Still, fine aiming is a bit more challenging than it should be, since the aiming system is, quite literally, hit and miss. There’s also not much variation in the melee weapons. Jumping, by pressing the right analog stick down is something of a chore as well, although most of the areas worth jumping to are advertised and easy enough to get to.  It also would have been more interesting had there been some more interesting evasion moves.

Like a B-Movie Convention in the ‘burbs

There are plenty of bad things—from hordes of zombies, to evil spirits, fiery imps and demons, huge spiders, and a variety of crazy looking vaguely-familiar boss monsters. Their AI is simple, even if most of the monsters are fast moving and good at homing in on you. Some of them pick up weapons, or projectile vomit at you, but mostly the monsters are by-the-numbers old-school-arcade bad guys.

You won’t have any AI help in the single player game. While games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance give the lonely adventurer plenty of support, the only way to have the whole hormone-addled gang here is with three other players huddled around the same TV, or through Xbox Live. This lack of teamwork also makes the single player mode a bit hard to take seriously, since it forces the game to rely on the monster AI and combat system to entertain the lone gamer.

It’s Like a Comic Book, Man… with your Friends

The game certainly looks appealing. Sharp, colorful graphics are the highlight, and Monster Madness has a distinctly cartoonish look to everything. The cinematic sequences are told in comic book panels, and this sensibility is carried through the whole game—presumably because to do a more realistic approach would have made the otherwise excessive violence unsuitable for younger audiences.

Where Monster Madness shines the most is, of course, the multiplayer. With four players, especially on the same machine, the game becomes far more entertaining. The gameplay that seems moderately amusing, if quickly uninspired for one player feels naturally appealing with more protagonists on the screen. Even so, there’s nothing here that we haven’t seen many times before, and usually done better.

We did the Mash

Monster Madness is a solid revamp of the coin-op style, and the B-movie setting will likely make it more appealing for some gamers than the spandex-clad, vastly superior Marvel Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends games. Even if you want a horror-themed version, bargain bins have plenty of copies of the more inspired Hunter the Reckoning. Just the same, while not great, Monster Madness is generally fun with its mix of solid monster design and colorful, animated graphics.

Article by: Jason D'Aprile