Monster House

5.5
Average

Gameplay	5.0	"Uninspired? Bad controls? Movie Licence? Yup."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	6.0
Value	3.0

By Sam Leitch

I have to say despite the usual reluctance to play any game based on a movie licence, especially that of a children’s movie – I was actually looking forward to playing this game. You see, the setting of a Haunted House ought to be a blessing for game designers. It’s a setting where you can let your imagination go wild; the house being alive makes for some interesting ideas as well. Granted though some of these would make for a better horror game than a children’s game, such as bleeding walls and organ walls... What I was hoping to see though was some artistic flair, never knowing what oddity lurked in the next room.

The game does start well, with a huge hole in the floor trying to swallow you up, and light through the windows moving around trying to spot you - and hell, the groan the house makes each time you smash something is a nice touch too. It’s just a pity ideas like these were not used more often. Nope - here you will be shooting haunted chairs and toasters with water-pistols. Granted, the designers had to keep within the licence, but you do feel they could have had a lot more fun with it. Maybe the deadlines and budget didn’t allow for creativity?

Despite the control and camera working against you the whole time (maybe they are haunted too?), Monster House is an incredibly short and easy game. Again, granted it’s for kids, but this can be beaten in a few short hours. During these hours you’ll venture through many empty boring rooms bothered by the odd uninspired enemy. When attacked by said enemy, you will soon figure out three things: 1) your turning circle sucks; 2) the aiming sucks; and 3) you really can’t be bothered anyway. Luckily you have a never ending supply of water in your pistol. Each time your water runs low, a few pumps makes water magically appear in your tank – where can I get one?

Graphically the game is quite good - the kids look like kids, the mansion looks neglected, and, well actually that’s it. Everything looks good and is modelled well and so forth, it’s just a pity the designs are so bland. The music is rather atmospheric, but the sound again lacks any punch at all and your kid whining ‘It’s so heavy’ etc gets old real quick.

Throughout the game you will pick up ‘hidden’ tokens for the mini-arcade game which is accessible from the title menu. In this you play as a dude with an axe. You hit stuff with the axe. This is actually fun. A lot more fun than the main game. ‘Thou Art Dead’ is obviously retro for the sake of being retro, taking inspiration from, and possibly mocking Castlevania and Ghouls N’ Ghosts. Moral of the story? Hitting stuff with an axe is more fun than walking around empty rooms lined with indestructible objects.

If you want to play some games that show how much fun you can really have in a house of horrors, try picking up Luigi’s Mansion or Grabbed By The Ghoulies. Both of these titles have imaginative settings, great controls, are kid safe (although Grabbed can get quite tricky). Sure, kids (the target audience after all) won’t mind and may even be entertained for a while, but even if you are after a kids game, there are much better ones out there – try Stuart Little 3.

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