It seems to me that most reviews that cover licensed “movie games” are obligated to feature the done-to-death debate about how video games based off of Hollywood films are traditionally sub-par, generic, and undercooked. In those dullard articles, the writers will usually mention half a dozen recent “movie game” titles that didn't fare so well in the critical world. Perhaps they will mention the two or three video games in all of gaming history that matched the acclaim of their accompanying films. Sometimes the writer rhetorically asks why most developers fail to put more time and effort into these licensed projects. Gradually, the “movie game review” will unfold into a written formula that is as tried-and-true as a Pythagorean equation before finally ending with a disgruntled recommendation that points to the “die-hard fans” of the movie or a gift idea for the reader's least-favorite nieces or nephews. Never mind that the “movie game” is actually a video game – instead, many of the critics focus on the fact that it is a licensed product, and that almost automatically categorizes the title into negativity.
I really didn't want to take that stale route with my review of Monsters Vs. Aliens. Before opening the box, I knew nothing about the Dreamworks film or its video game translation. I had none of the preconceived opinions or lofty expectations that typically occupy my critical mind. I figured that Activision and Beenox's game would be targeted at the horde of kids who ushered their parents into movie theaters to see the film. While I realized that I am older than the demographic that Activision is aiming at, I anticipated that the game would offer some simple action/platform game mechanics that might serve as valid entertainment for the young target audience. Quite simply, that's exactly what Monsters Vs. Aliens contains: It provides some of the modern genre tricks that were made popular by other action/platform games while simultaneously filling the screen with licensed themes and colorful characters that come straight from the movie. That's all fair and acceptable, am I right? So the question is this: will Activision's Monsters Vs. Aliens game make the youngsters happy? What about gamers in general? Is the title a faithful representation of its animated, CG brother?
Hit the jump and see if this “movie game” is more of a monster than the rest of them.
Monsters Vs. Aliens is a game that draws its playable material directly out of the deck of its Hollywood blockbuster counterpart of the same name. It offers the movie's storyline and presents many of the same events from the film, like most movie-licensed games. Players control three of the movie's main characters as they run, jump, fight, solve puzzles, and rollerskate through levels that are inspired by events in the film. Each of the three characters have vastly different abilities, and their specialized levels are designed to utilize their individual powers and provide a challenge for a younger gaming audience. Older gamers and veterans: you are right if you assume that Monsters Vs. Aliens is a game for kids. This is a game that would serve as the perfect distraction for children who want to see or have already seen the film. Therefore, you probably shouldn't be surprised about the game's specific greater and lesser qualities, or the fact that it just isn't for everyone. Speaking of those good and bad qualities, I will now explain the gameplay to you.
The first of the three characters you control is an overgrown woman named Susan, who is dubbed as a monster and nicknamed “Ginormica” due to her giant (or should I say, “giantess”) height. Her levels are the simplest to play: the player controls Ginormica as she rollerskates down a set path, avoiding enemies and obstacles like pitfalls, fallen buildings, and robot lasers. Along the way she'll have to jump, ride along walls, and grind rails in order to reach her goal. There are occasional alternate pathways that Ginormica can take to deviate from the standard path to avoid enemies or other hazards. Sometimes the player will have to dash-tackle robotic enemies that charge toward Ginormica, or duck to avoid head-level laser beams and fallen structures. Ginormica will eventually engage some of her bigger mechanical threats in quick-time events (QTEs) that force the player to press the right buttons at the right time to avoid oncoming attacks and fight back. These events are similar to those found in games like Resident Evil 5 and God of War, although the timing required to press the right buttons is more forgiving than the QTEs found in those adult-oriented games. Ginormica's levels are almost never difficult, and while they aren't necessarily thrilling to play, it is slightly entertaining to control the massive woman as she skates through the Alien destruction.
Ginormica skates with vehicles those trucks attached to her feet to get through gauntlets of Alien enemies.
The next character that is controlled is The Missing Link. The Missing Link is easier to identify as a monster than Ginormica, mostly because he is a fish-like creature looks like the creature from the Black Lagoon. His style of play is composed of simple action mechanics that are similar to those found in third-person action games like God of War. He can attack Alien enemies with combos that combine weak and strong punches. He can also perform a devastating acrobatic attack that quickly destroys anything on the screen. This move is quite similar to Sonic's Light Speed Dash in Sonic Adventure, but it is slightly inconsistent – sometimes he can't attack or target all of the enemies on the screen, for reasons unknown to me. Sometimes it just doesn't work right. The Missing Link can roll to dodge oncoming attacks with the right analog stick, although most enemies are too slow to react to him and aren't aggressive enough to be a major threat. His most threatening foes are the laser turrets that are scattered throughout his levels. After stunning them with a couple of attacks, he can jump on top of them and beat them up as the player furiously mashes buttons. These turrets usually guard switches or other objects that The Missing Link has to interact with in order to proceed. The action on the screen can get a little hectic when there are several turrets firing at him and multiple robotic enemies simultaneously attack.
The Missing Link's levels are a lot like God of War for Kiddies.
The last of the three characters is B.O.B., who is essentially a big glob of translucent, blue goo with one eyeball and an appetite for anything. He reminds me a lot of Maw, the star character of the recent XBLA game, The Maw. B.O.B.'s levels focus on platform sequences and some light puzzle-solving. He can jump up to ceilings or slide up and across walls to reach areas that are inaccessible to his less-sticky friends and foes. This is mostly helpful in avoiding enemies, reaching switches, or traversing over deadly pitfalls. He has another specialty, which is used to solve most of the puzzles he encounters. B.O.B.'s special ability to consume items and enemies allows him to trap things in his gaping mouth and move around the level with them. When his mouth is empty, his liquid-like form allows him to pass through grated floors and walls. When he is holding a solid object in his mouth, he cannot pass through these things. However, he can move boxes onto pressure switches or “borrow” patrolling guards to unlock security doors. Of course, he can also spit items at enemies in order to defend himself. Sometimes B.O.B.'s powers must be combined. For example, he may have to pass through a grated wall, pick up and swallow a box, and jump up to the ceiling above to get back over the wall to place the box in his mouth on a pressure switch. B.O.B.'s levels are considerably the most challenging, although some of that challenge comes from frustrations that occur when the player spits out an item too early and falls through a grated floor or just before reaching a security door that requires a guard in order to proceed.
This is Ma...I mean, "B.O.B." Unfortunately, he doesn't eat Yums or grow into a massive purple planet.
The only challenges I encountered in Monsters Vs. Aliens were very light in difficulty, making the game immediately accessible for younger children and inexperienced gamers. In fact, most players could breeze through the game without any trouble and earn the Achievements that reward progress through the game with less than ten “failures” (deaths). With no immediate challenges in the game, I decided to challenge myself by attempting to earn high scores for each level and unlocking all of the game's hidden goodies. It is very easy to find and collect the countless “Monster DNA” orbs scattered throughout the game, which are gathered and then used as currency in the game's “DNA Lab”. The DNA Lab is a “secret unlockables” shop, and it is organized in a ladder-like fashion. The store is completely loaded with dozens of items to purchase. To actually unlock more items in the DNA Lab's “ladder”, you must purchase all of the stuff that “links” to newer items on the chain. The special items are pretty standard as far as unlockable extras go: there are pieces of the game's concept artwork, as well as movie stills of scenes that inspired levels and events in the game. There are audio commentaries provided by the game's characters that are meant to act as the character's personal memoirs, and these commentaries can be heard as the player revisits a level. There are also health bonuses, co-op item upgrades, and special abilities to purchase for each character, like Ginormica's “chain dash” combo attack. Finally, players can purchase and play “Monster Challenges”. These are usually the more challenging sequences cut right out of the game's stages, but with the addition of parameters like time limits, score challenges, or strict limitations to the amount of damage the player can take. These Monster Challenges are easily the most addictive part of the entire game. A good performance unlocks gold, silver, and bronze medals as well as additional items in the DNA Lab. Of course, earning all the gold medals unlocks another Achievement.
The DNA Lab and Monster Challenges are great ideas, and they add a lot of replay value to Monsters Vs. Aliens. It is just too bad that you can't pick and choose what to buy, since you'll have to buy lesser items like concept art in order to move onto better things like health bonuses or special moves. Fortunately, running out of Monster DNA is not too much of a problem: stockpiling it is made even easier when you can rack up “combos” while playing through the game. These combos can be gained and sustained by collecting special orbs that are scattered across each character's levels. The combo creates a multiplier that increases your level score, as well as increasing the amount of Monster DNA you collect when you grab the orbs. The multiplier increases up to 5X, and will stay there until you take damage or lose a life. This creates more of an incentive to work through each level diligently, particularly if you hope to unlock everything in the DNA Lab, earn the highest score, collect more Monster DNA, and unlock all of the Achievements related to these challenges.
Something as easy as watching this scene: unlocking an Achievement for watching the credits. Ya, rly.
Unfortunately, getting through all of Monsters Vs. Aliens takes patience. In fact, it takes more patience than one might expect, because Beenox's licensed game isn't as short as most movie games tend to be. There are dozens of levels to complete, and the most disappointing aspect of Monsters Vs. Aliens is made worse by the length of the single-player game. This title loses its charm quickly, transitioning clumsily from a simple and effectively entertaining experience for kids into an unnecessarily and inexcusably repetitive chore for even the most patient and tolerant players. While you won't always play through the levels in the Ginormica-Missing Link-B.O.B. order of operations, you will always do the same things in a character's next level as you did in his or her previous stage. Ginormica's levels always focus on skating down a set path. The Missing Link's levels are always full of simple button-mashing combos and turret beatings. B.O.B.'s next level is always a redesigned platform puzzle with some more wall-walking, switch-pressing and item-spitting. The only deviations are some simple boss fights and the occasional turret sequences, where the player shoots down enemies and projectiles from a stationary machine gun turret. The turret sequences are fun, but I was convinced that it is impossible to fail any of them as long as you are actually shooting the turret. I mentioned the QTEs earlier, and I must say that despite their lesser difficulty, I still despise them as much as the ridiculous QTEs in other video games. QTEs are not welcomed by me as they appear in any game, and that includes licensed games made for kids that are twelve years younger than I am.
Beyond the gameplay flaws, I am absolutely stumped about something else involving Monsters Vs. Aliens. If there is one thing I can't understand about the slew of Xbox 360 video games based around animated CG films, it is the lacking attention that developers give to the games' presentation. Although it is reasonable to argue and easy to assume that developers don't want to lose money by putting an excessive amount of financial effort into licensed products, I feel like the licensed games would benefit from an increased focus on production values. Look at it this way: popular animation houses like Dreamworks and Pixar utilize massive movie budgets, spending millions of dollars in order to create some of the most impressive CG works in the history of animation. They are rightfully and justifiably recognized by almost all movie-goers as the heavyweights of CG animation. Their dedication to provide theater audiences with work of such high quality is rewarded by a relentless following of children and their accompanying parents, who will see the current film and the next film regardless of the characters or storylines involved. To provide the fans of their movies with another layer of entertainment that can't be achieved by simply watching a movie, their beloved licenses are sold to video game developers. These teams are tasked with making an appropriate virtual representation with a similar focus on quality. Unfortunately, the CG artistry is almost universally degraded in movie games. Sophomoric faults in graphic design infest these games; faults like bland, low-resolution textures, poor 3D models, choppy animations, generic menus, and sparse, detail-deprived environments. Sometimes the charming, memorable cast of characters that the kids fall in love with at the movie theater is tarnished; made dry and flat with in-game voice acting and dialog lines that range from clichéd and stereotypical to senselessly annoying and repetitive.
In this chapter, the Monsters have to take down a cyclops robot that is otherwise busy destroying San Francisco.
While Beenox and Activision aren't the only culprits in the gaming world, their Monsters Vs. Aliens game is undeniably plagued by many of the problems that I mentioned. Nothing in the game looks particularly terrible, but the quality of the film's CG work is hardly represented by graphics that completely ignore the power of consoles like the Xbox 360. Perhaps the developers created the Xbox 360 version of Monsters Vs. Aliens with assets that also worked on the versions that appear on technically “weaker” platforms like the Wii and PlayStation 2? Nothing here would have impressed Xbox 360 owners four years ago. For example, B.O.B. looks like a solid, chewy blue gumdrop and moves around stiffly, in a way that doesn't reflect his liquid, gelatinous composition. Ginormica's animations during her skating levels are rigid and laughable in their simplistic repetition. It isn't helpful that her levels are all essentially the same, with their only differences being visual changes in the appearance of the backgrounds and subtle alterations of the enemy models. The Missing Link is perhaps the most repetitive character in terms of animations, since his attack combos are short and are reused endlessly as he progresses through each level. He also repeats his “taunt” lines so many times that you will hear some of them two or three times while fighting the same group of enemies. It's completely cheesy and annoying. The biggest, most painful crime of all is the lack of quality voice acting by the film's star-studded talent like Steven Colbert, Hugh Laurie, Reese Witherspoon, and Seth Rogan. Instead, there are “soundalikes” standing in for them – and suffice it to say, they don't do the greatest job. While I can't necessarily disregard Monsters Vs. Aliens for its lack of productive splendor, I think that it is very unfortunate that yet another license is sloppily represented by its accompanying video game. Seriously though, couldn't they have at least included the CG scenes from the film to advance the plot between the levels? No? Maybe these days I am too needy and ask for too much from video game developers.
One might think my less-than-favorable criticism of Monsters Vs. Aliens stems from the fact that I'm not part of the target audience, and I'd have to call that a false assessment. When it comes to the source material, I don't discriminate against what some people consider to be mere “kids movies”. Although I haven't seen Monsters Vs. Aliens, I tend to see (and enjoy) Dreamworks and Pixar movies long before I even show an interest in other films. I love them – in fact, movies like Monsters, Inc., Shrek II, Over the Hedge, and Wall-E have made a firm believer out of me since the days of 1995, when Pixar kick-started the CG animation phenomenon with my all-time favorite film, Toy Story. In fact, I would rather see the upcoming Toy Story 3 (6/18/10!!) than any gamer-pleasing Halo or Metal Gear Solid film – I just enjoy them that much. Unfortunately, these movies are rarely given justice in a virtual form. When it comes to Monsters Vs. Aliens, I wanted to like the game a whole lot more than I actually did. It's just too bad that things like poor visuals, crummy “soundalikes”, and repetitive gameplay stand in the way of this title being considered a solid movie game. After all, it is obvious to me that Beenox put in some extra effort with the DNA Lab and Monster Challenges. It's just too bad that each character's different play style is worn to the bone so quickly by mindless repetition that it is a challenging task to push forward. Maybe kids can perform the same tasks over and over again without them feeling redundant, but I simply couldn't and I don't think very many experienced gamers could.
I only wish Monsters Vs. Aliens was exciting as riding on the outside of a helicopter.
With all of that said, Monsters Vs. Aliens isn't a title that will stop the presses and force the cynical game reviewers of the world to reevaluate their nay-saying stance on “movie games”. However, unlike most licensed games, it provides a younger audience with an experience that isn't wrapped up in three or four quick hours. It might be the only movie game in recent times worth the $50: for young gamers, the sticker value or rental cost is justified by a lot of content and a lengthy single-player quest. I may have been somewhat harsh toward Monsters Vs. Aliens for the less-than-impressive audio and visual work, but it really isn't a terrible game. It's just that the intense repetition will most likely drive away most older gamers and dull the minds of Achievement/Trophy farmers. Sure, younger kids will still enjoy the game just for what it is: it's a game based on what might be their current favorite film. They won't dwell on the repetition. They will simply like playing as their favorite characters from Monsters Vs. Aliens. They will appreciate and enjoy the slew of unlockables. They might even work toward the feat of earning gold medals on all of the Monster Challenges, or try to unlock all of the game's Achievements. So then, is it really so unfortunate that Activision published a licensed game that sufficiently caters to its target audience? I say, “No, not at all.” If you read this entire review, my guess is that you're a younger gamer or a parent who buys games for their children. With that in mind, Monsters Vs. Aliens might appeal to you or whoever you might purchase the game for. If your young one wants a Monsters Vs. Aliens theme for his or her next birthday party, or begs for Monsters Vs. Aliens stuffed toys, or tries to convince you to take them to the theater to see it again, they will probably enjoy the licensed game. It's just unfortunate for me to know that the widespread appeal of the film can't be matched by the video game for the rest of the masses to enjoy.
In the future, I would really love to see developers push the envelope a little more with their licensed products. I believe that the day and age of expecting nothing more than garbage from “movie games” has gone on for far too long. In the past, I wished to see some of my favorite Dreamworks/Pixar films like Shrek, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E represented by quality work. It is unfortunate that their time has come and gone. Perhaps I'm asking for too much, but if a movie game could provide at least a solid gameplay experience while also delivering some fancy production values, that game might finally deter the whole “movie games are crap” argument and make a name for itself among the other dull bricks in the wall. Who knows, maybe the potential Toy Story 3 game will do the trick next summer.
Final Score: C+
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