Monster Madness 360 Impressions
It's the geek in me. I can't help it
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Sure yet-to-be-released top-down Xbox 360 shooter Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has plenty of zombie killing, rideable vehicles and the ability to, yourself, transform into a creature of the night, but what really did it for me is the game's MacGyver approach to weapons upgrades.
On its surface the game is about you and up to three friends trying to stop a comic book-like invasion of monsters (the game includes 50 types) threatening to overwhelm your suburban town.
But what I found myself spending most of my time doing was collecting old springs, bits of tin, cogs, gears, anything that I could bring back to the game's gadget guy who would then hand-over, for a small fee, things like dual-wielding nailguns or a shotgun made with a bit of old pipe.
Even if I didn't spend an inordinate amount of time tossing the trashcans in alleys or busting up things in search of parts, the game would still be quite lengthy.
The build I have offers a glimpse of just one of the game's five areas. Each area is broken down into six sizable levels.
Area one Suburban Nightmare, while fairly linear, included plenty of variety, from giant clowns with feet the size of cars to undead pirates. That's right, pirates.
The entire game has a very cartoon-like look to it, while the full motion video of the cut scenes are delivered in a comic book style, but young comic book
But don't let the comic look fool you, the game uses the Unreal Engine 3 as well as AGEIA physics to put some heft behind those brightly colored graphics..
I did notice some issues with this early build, but that's probably why it's an early build. Those big-footed clowns, for instance, tended to get stuck in the trees of the park, and the AI, in general, seemed a little slipshod, but hopefully that will be something they improve down the line.
The game has interesting controls, having you use one thumbstick to move and the other to point which way you will be attacking. Since plenty of these attacks are more melee in nature than about shooting something, this can feel a bit awkward at first.
On top of that there are buttons that allow you to aim up or down.
The game also opts to leave all of the players, be the one or four, confined to the single screen. This means no split-screen action, but that comes off as an obvious design choice rather than some issue with the horsepower of the 360.
While I didn't get a chance to check it out, the game also supports both local and online mulitplayer modes. There is, of course, the coop mode I already mentioned which can handle up to four players online or off. You can also play competitively with up to a total of 16 players. Comp modes include deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and survival and supports both traps and environmental hazards.
It's easy to look at the game's fast-paced arcade style and assume it's something that belongs more on the Live Arcade, but once you see the game's depth, in-particular those incredibly cool upgradeable weapons, it makes sense that SouthPeak Interactive's game is going to be coming out in stores.