Monster House
Think of it as Resident Icky.
Published: July 24, 2006
For once, I'm going to avoid going off on some "licensed games based on summer movies suck" tirade, because it's fairly established, what with about 20 years of history providing ample examples of quick cash-ins. I will happily say that Monster House isn't really one of those crappy games. It's not stellar, and very obviously aimed at kids, but for what it is, Artificial Mind and Movement has made themselves a rather nice Resident Evil 4 clone. But, y'know, for kids.
To be fair, the source material certainly presents itself as a ready-made things-that-go-bump-in-the-night adventure. Three kids; DJ, Jenny and Chowder, finally get fed up after trying to convince all the grown-ups in the neighborhood that the creepy old Nebbercracker guy's place is evil, and head over there themselves to prove it (not to mention find out what happened to all the people that have gone missing as of late). Instead, they're wrangled by the cops and tossed in the back of a cruiser, which is bad enough until the house comes alive and swallows them whole.
Think of it as a sort of expanded version of the really cool sequences in The Haunting where normally inanimate objects (like, say a carpet) become instruments of a sentient house's means of wreaking terror on the little tykes inside (like a really long tongue). This is carried out to the nth degree; chairs become spiders, blanks of wood become spiders and radiators become... well, spider-ish too. But there's plenty of poltergeist-type stuff going on with books and planes and vases all being chucked at the kids.
Their means of defense? The almighty Super Soaker -- or at least a reasonable facsimile of them -- which are apparently loaded with some kind of anti-creepy-crawly juju. Refilled just like in the commercials with a couple good pumps, these instruments of defense are all the kids have against the monsters of the house aside from a quick melee attack that must be used on enemies directly in front of the character and a lazy dodge that hardly ever works (when stationary, it's a duck move, and that's far more reliable for most of the game).
What makes the game so interesting (aside from the visuals, but more on those in a bit) is how subtly different the kids are. Chowder, DJ and Jenny all have secondary attacks with semi-limited ammo (the stuff's all over the house, fortunately) like water balloons, a stunning camera flash and a slingshot, but the water guns they have are all slightly different too. Though they all start out fairly similar, upgrades found through the normal course of the game give them more definite roles: a shotgun-style close range buck, a steady fire hose-like stream and a rapid-fire but low-damage stream of pitters. Though I could have just imagined it, the kids seemed to move at different speeds too, but that could have been just me.
Notice I mentioned Resident Evil 4. That's not just a passing comment; much of the game has been lifted from Capcom's masterpiece, and for the most part it all works out quite nicely, if not quite as well as RE4 did it. The over-the-shoulder camera view, mark my words, will be one of the most oft-used angles in games for the next few years. The same semi-tank controls are present, and there are even cutscenes and boss battles where you have to press buttons quickly to execute the proper escape or finishing moves. Like I said, these are done well enough that isn't not huge deal, but the influence is certainly there.
To be fair, the source material certainly presents itself as a ready-made things-that-go-bump-in-the-night adventure. Three kids; DJ, Jenny and Chowder, finally get fed up after trying to convince all the grown-ups in the neighborhood that the creepy old Nebbercracker guy's place is evil, and head over there themselves to prove it (not to mention find out what happened to all the people that have gone missing as of late). Instead, they're wrangled by the cops and tossed in the back of a cruiser, which is bad enough until the house comes alive and swallows them whole.
Think of it as a sort of expanded version of the really cool sequences in The Haunting where normally inanimate objects (like, say a carpet) become instruments of a sentient house's means of wreaking terror on the little tykes inside (like a really long tongue). This is carried out to the nth degree; chairs become spiders, blanks of wood become spiders and radiators become... well, spider-ish too. But there's plenty of poltergeist-type stuff going on with books and planes and vases all being chucked at the kids.
Their means of defense? The almighty Super Soaker -- or at least a reasonable facsimile of them -- which are apparently loaded with some kind of anti-creepy-crawly juju. Refilled just like in the commercials with a couple good pumps, these instruments of defense are all the kids have against the monsters of the house aside from a quick melee attack that must be used on enemies directly in front of the character and a lazy dodge that hardly ever works (when stationary, it's a duck move, and that's far more reliable for most of the game).
What makes the game so interesting (aside from the visuals, but more on those in a bit) is how subtly different the kids are. Chowder, DJ and Jenny all have secondary attacks with semi-limited ammo (the stuff's all over the house, fortunately) like water balloons, a stunning camera flash and a slingshot, but the water guns they have are all slightly different too. Though they all start out fairly similar, upgrades found through the normal course of the game give them more definite roles: a shotgun-style close range buck, a steady fire hose-like stream and a rapid-fire but low-damage stream of pitters. Though I could have just imagined it, the kids seemed to move at different speeds too, but that could have been just me.
Notice I mentioned Resident Evil 4. That's not just a passing comment; much of the game has been lifted from Capcom's masterpiece, and for the most part it all works out quite nicely, if not quite as well as RE4 did it. The over-the-shoulder camera view, mark my words, will be one of the most oft-used angles in games for the next few years. The same semi-tank controls are present, and there are even cutscenes and boss battles where you have to press buttons quickly to execute the proper escape or finishing moves. Like I said, these are done well enough that isn't not huge deal, but the influence is certainly there.
