Vomiting clowns
In Monster Madness you have the opportunity to control a quartet of American teenager stereotypes: Zack the nerd, Andy the surf dude, Carrie the Goth and Jennifer the cheerleader. These four friends hook up at Zack’s house while his parents are on vacation, but the party is gate-crashed unexpectedly by a group of zombies, intent on spoiling the fun.
From this point forth it's a case of grabbing any weapons littered around the environment whilst darting around twisting full-circle and firing in all directions in order to beat the life out of anything that moves, before taking on a number of occasionally entertaining, but often frustratingly difficult to beat, mini-boss battles against the likes of the Indian chief and the farting fat zombie. Fast and frenetic combat is the name of the game, but despite some nice ideas the action does get extremely repetitive, especially during special sequences called Monster Fests, where you'll need to kill a set number of baddies to progress. The multitude of colourful enemies that attack and the ways in which they lunge at you are entertaining enough, like the suicidal zombies that dart at you with dynamite strapped to their back, but it's the controls behind your own character's actions that let the game down, whilst the simplistic combat system does little to make you feel as if you've taken part in a meaningful battle (one that relied on pure skill to win). More often than not you can press any buttons in any sequence and you'll kill anything in front of you; it's only the mini-bosses that put up any real fight and provide any real challenge. I've enjoyed fighting the variety of bosses on offer - each one has their own unique move and their special moves are also entertaining to watch – but on a few occasions there's so much action going around you, such as zombies lunging at you or explosions going off, that you find yourself just pressing all the buttons as rapidly as possible in order to jump out the way of missiles and to melee the deluge of enemies out of the way. Fast action I don't mind, but when there's no particular skill needed, apart from having the patience to press your buttons frantically for 5 minutes solid, then it becomes a bit of a chore.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageThe fighting in the game is made somewhat more interesting by the fact that each playable character has a unique signature move that can be used when brandishing a certain weapon. For example: cheerleader Jennifer can dual wield batons and spin around rapidly, knocking over anyone in the vicinity or Zack can pound his axe on the ground knocking enemies backwards. The special moves are effective, visually impressive and the best thing about the combat sequences in general, but aside from that one special movement, the rest of the combat moves are repetitive, simple and bland in comparison. You can rotate your thumb-stick and spin your character round and round in order to counteract enemies as they attack you from all angles and you can jump by clicking on the stick or activate a swift dodge maneuver in order to leap out the way, but the overall result just sees you jumping, running, twisting and turning at a manic pace as you try and plough through the incessant attacks.
