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Do you ever want to like something but find yourself unable? Ever wish you could say nice things about a game but there're just too many parts you'd need to turn a blind eye to? Well, that's the position Monster House has put me in. It's a game with some neat stuff, an interesting style, and its heart in the right place, but it just doesn't come together well enough to be worth recommending.
The plot is basically that of the middle of the Monster House movie, with two boys and a girl trapped inside an evil house and trying to escape. They're separated immediately, and the game switches between one kid and the next as it progresses. Basically, it's My First Survival Horror Adventure with a rotating viewpoint.
At first the house is honestly creepy, with a promising variety of enemies that, while not as over the top as Silent Hill's, are still pretty disturbing. Chairs come to life, tvs grow legs and walk on the ceiling, and everything looks just plain evil. The house itself sprouts pipes that constantly block off doors or swat at the kids, and sudden tree attacks can jump out of the wall at any second. But then, at about hour three, comes the realization that this is it. There won't be anything else. Sure enough, barring a boss fight in the middle and the final battle at the end, that's all there is. One big evil house, two boss encounters, half-a-dozen monsters, and that's it.
Still, the army of evil furniture and appliances needs to be dealt with. Armed with infinite-ammo water guns and a secondary limited-use power attack unique to each character, the kids blast through the house as best they can while solving a few very simple puzzles. DJ has the water gun equivalent of a hand cannon and a camera that stuns enemies, Chowder has a shotgun and water balloon area attack, and Jenny an Uzi and high-damage marble-equipped slingshot. When enemies get too close, a melee attack can push the creatures back a bit and deal some solid damage. The kids have unique gun, special, and melee attacks, but the monsters are the same for each of them and there's no particular advantage between one character and the next.
Perhaps the biggest crime Monster House commits is in its constant use of Shenmue-style active time events. An action will suddenly occur requiring a specific button press to get past, and missing it causes bad things to happen. The mid-game and end boss both depend on this to defeat, but a regular event during normal gameplay happens often enough that it ends up feeling old. Every once in a while a tree branch will break through the walls, grabbing at the player. Hit the button displayed on screen and you dodge, the branch misses, and life goes on. Miss, and it's an insta-kill. Just fought through four rooms packed full of beasties, found a few of the special hidden monkeys (32 total, collect 'em all!), and felt satisfied with your progress? Too bad, you're dead now despite the full health bar. Do it again, but this time try not to screw up the one button press that causes you not to die.
Despite these issues, Monster House has enough cool stuff in it to make it almost worth recommending. The atmosphere is excellent, the creature designs creative, and the action fairly solid despite a sometimes-unhelpful camera. Rounding out the good stuff is a fake 8-bit arcade game called Thou Art Dead. It's unlocked from the first time the game is powered on, but requires tokens found throughout the house to play. In it, a barbarian walks left to right smiting monsters with his mighty axe, rendered in a very NES style. It's a bit easy, and somewhat less bloody than the game it's based on from the movie, but still one of the cooler bonuses I've seen in a while. While there's no way the NES could display so many sprites at once without major slowdown and flicker, that's one of those aspects of classic gaming it's best to leave almost forgotten in the past. While Thou Art Dead is no Rastan, it's still a fantastic little extra.
Even with a bonus game, Monster House is just too short and easy for its own good. I blew through it in a bit over six hours, and doubt the average kid the game is aimed at would take much longer. Generous health-ups make death a rarity, and the “limited” special attacks can be refilled faster than they get used. The only tricky bit to the combat is the water guns needing to be pumped up when the reservoir drops low, leaving a gap in the constant stream of fire for enemies to get in a few hits. Pretty soon even that's ineffective when refilling between enemies becomes a habit.
It's disappointing that Monster House isn't better. There are a lot of good bits in it just waiting for a game worthy of them. The monsters and atmosphere are both creepy and aggressively evil, and just a bit more monster variety and a few additional boss fights would have spiced up the combat enough to prevent feelings of repetition creeping in about two-thirds of the way through. Like a lot of games that end up being forgettably middling, there's the heart of something really fun beating under Monster House's nearly-adequate exterior.
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