We had planned on posting these impressions yesterday, but we were just swamped in
Monster Madness plays a lot like the Hunter games on the original Xbox (which were pretty good, by the way). Players control a character's movements with the left stick and aim with the right stick (similar to Geometry Wars). The triggers use primary and secondary weapons, and clicking the right stick jumps. Other buttons cycle through weapons or serve as hotkeys. Now, with all primary buttons taken up by weapons or cycling, we're left with one of Monster Madness' biggest flaws: the camera. The camera is completely uncontrollable. This wouldn't be a problem except the demo takes place entirely indoors. Walls and other objects can get in the way, making it difficult to discern what's going on. Not only that, but the isometric viewpoints make judging jump distance a pain.
Unfortunately, Monster Madness has a few more issues as well. The biggest issue is the controls. The right stick always controls which direction your character is facing, no matter what. We like multidirectional aiming, and it worked well in the Hunter games, but it doesn't work nearly as well here. One reason for this is that the directional aiming is constant. In other words, if your character is facing left, he keeps facing left until you adjust the right stick. It works fine for ranged weapons, but it's a pain to have to manually aim a melee weapon. If the game at least had an option to snap the aim in whatever direction a character is running (assuming no direction is being pressed on the right stick), we'd be happy.
As for the melee attacks themselves, they leave something to be desired. Basically, each character has about three attack animations and that's it. There are no chains or combos, you just constantly mash the right trigger and flail at your enemies. Each character has a power attack that charges as successive hits are made, but that's as far as the variety goes.
Finally, the characters themselves have the annoying habit of talking ... constantly. Listening to your character repeatedly quip "I hope you're flexible, because it's time to kiss your butt goodbye" gets tiring really fast.
Now, having said all that, we couldn't help but enjoy the game just a little. It's certainly the kind of game that's more enjoyable with friends, and the demo offers several multiplayer options including co-op and versus. There's nothing revolutionary here, and nothing that other games haven't done better, but Monster Madness does have some charm to it. It's clear that a lot of work went into the concepts and character designs, which makes it all the more unfortunate that the demo isn't any better than it is. The demo clearly states that it's not representative of final code. We're taking that to heart, because Monster Madness has potential. If the retail version has a decent story and an enjoyable campaign, it should at least be worth a rental for some co-op with your buddies. For now, we'll have to wait and see.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-13-2007 @ 6:33PM
Boff said...
I was looking forward to the demo and wanted to like it but even after persevering I still couldn't get into it.
You're spot on with the control/aiming issue.
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4-13-2007 @ 6:34PM
Boff said...
It ended up feeling like a peice of shit button masher to me.
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4-13-2007 @ 6:39PM
Darko said...
There may be some hope... If they get enough feed back I dont see why many of the issues couldnt be fixed. Here's hoping they do.
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4-13-2007 @ 7:05PM
The1 said...
The controls suck and thus this game is TRASH. Deveopers should have gotten the controls down.
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4-13-2007 @ 7:05PM
Vasco said...
I was looking forward to this game, and then I played it. Now I could careless if this horrible game ever sees the light of day. I wonder if programmers sit there and actually think this is a quality gaming experience.
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4-13-2007 @ 7:18PM
ANt said...
DEMO = DOO DOO
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4-13-2007 @ 7:19PM
Henry said...
I also loved the Hunters serie from xbox and I was looking forward to this demo. I agree with most of the comments. While the gameplay videos were so tantalizingly fun, the actual gameplay was absolutely terrible. (The melee control is one of the worst ever!)
Dev, please fix the camera and control issue before the release or else, no one is gonna buy this crappy button-masher.
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4-13-2007 @ 7:53PM
JamieBoi V2 said...
This demo is really bad, I would expect these GFX and gameplay on PS2....
4/10
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4-13-2007 @ 8:26PM
SeNiLe said...
Wow and I thought it was just me. First time ever playing anything like this and just thought it was me but glad to hear that others think the demo was garbage as well. It looks like it could be such a good game but your comments are spot on.
I wouldn't even rent this myself. I guess I am more into first and third person shooters.
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4-13-2007 @ 8:44PM
maltinej said...
downloaded the demo today... great music and sound and cool graphics... but the controls were terrible.. couldnt get into it.... i hope they arent thinking of charging $60 for this game....
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4-13-2007 @ 9:30PM
Tom said...
It kinda reminded me of Geometry Wars except... ya'know, NOT good. They could have simply made it so the right analog stick aims AND fires automatically just like in GW. It's crap the way it is now.
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4-13-2007 @ 9:51PM
DarkTravesty said...
@ maltinej yes they are thinking of charging $60 for this game sadly
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4-13-2007 @ 11:54PM
Tony said...
The problems can potentially be fixed... Hopefully they will be, considering everyone seems to have the same complaints about the game. It's a good concept and I hope it turns out.
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4-14-2007 @ 4:11AM
killr0y said...
The friggin video for this game came out 2 years ago, and it looked like crap then. Did the devs go on a 2 year vacation? Because the game still looks like that video (like crap).
This game would be ok for an XBLA game, except that the controls suck ass.
WORST DEMO EVAR
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4-14-2007 @ 3:17PM
Eriq said...
Worst demo ever from Live
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4-14-2007 @ 11:18PM
AgentESPIO7 said...
Horrible demo. Probably even worse game. Nuff said.
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4-15-2007 @ 4:38PM
jax sedrin said...
My 2 cents:
I agree that controls really need fixin', but two other things also bothered me.
1) In the Hunters games, you go from place to place to find the enemies, allowing you to somewhat control the pace of the game (except on the timed levels, of course). In this demo, enemies are constantly streaming at you no matter where you go or stay. This was especially bad on the first level because I spent most of the time just running away from the enemies instead of figuring out the controls and how the gameplay works. If you stop for just a second the enemies swarm you. It was just mass confusion (and it got really old really fast).
2) The HUD was horrible. Your health is not clearly displayed AT ALL and the ammo numbers are just in a weird position that make them hard to read (at least for me).
I think this game has great potential, but they really need to fix a lot of things before it'll be worth $60.
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4-15-2007 @ 10:33PM
Ack said...
spot on review. i actually thought it was a xbl game. makes the demo seem even worse.
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4-16-2007 @ 11:51AM
pimpdee976 said...
this game is trash, my 9 year old son said daddy this game sucks lets play gears of war
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4-19-2007 @ 1:57AM
AquaGeneral said...
Well actually you can change the camera around. In outside levels you can press Y to have the camera 3rd Person style like in Multiplayer CTF.
To move the camera do the following; Choose Adventure, any chracter, Childs Play difficulty, when the game starts run to the bottom of the bathroom, hide in the corner and wait to the enemies get stuck into walls or doors, use the right stick to turn around, do not move your character, you will notice the camera slightly moves to the direction where your character is facing,it slowly will move to where you face.
Hopfuly the final game will let the camera turn to your camera position quicker. Resolving the camera issues
I have sent an e-mail to Immersion games and Software about all of the issues everyone has had with MM. Plus some left handers will want there Southpaw control for the Sticks.
The physics will hopfuly be fixed because they did say in the demo this is not the final CODE, physics are all about code. If not there should atleast be a future patch for the issue.
PS: Lol long post and hello to everyone.
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