Monster Madness - Battle For Suburbia (Xbox 360 / PC)

 

Monster Madness - Battle For Suburbia (Xbox 360 / PC) :

I stumbled upon this game in a charity shop a while back, and was amazed I'd never heard of it before. I thought I knew about most of the 360's horror-themed titles, but this one had totally escaped my attention, maybe because it was quite an early release on the system....

I'm certainly glad I picked it up though, as what I found was another hidden gem of a game, that almost feels like a 3D version of my old favourite, Zombies Ate My Neighbors! Almost.....

You play as one of four teenage characters, who are having to deal with a zombie outbreak that seems to have happened at the worst possible time for one in particular. Zack, the nerd, was about to tell Carrie, the goth, exactly how he felt about her just as his skater friend Andy turned up, swiftly followed by Jennifer the cheerleader and the zombie horde!

Starting in Zack's house, you'll need to scour the environment for weapons and pickups to use against these icky ex-humans, and you'll also other pieces of metal and materials that can be used to later to construct more powerful weapons to keep them at bay. A boss zombie appears, and once you defeat him you can escape the house to the city and a whole host of other environments as you try to stop these undead fiends from ruining your night!

It soon becomes apparent however, that its not just zombies! There are all sorts of messed up monsters to battle....Bigfoot, Zombie Dogs, Werewolves...even Evil Clowns! Each new monster is introduced by a short cut-scene, which is a nice touch, and from what I've played so far new enemies pop up very frequently which keeps things interesting!

There's a fair dose of humour involved in the game too...it doesn't take itself too seriously at all, and this is what gives it that B-movie mocking, light hearted feeling thats similar to Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The weapons also harken back to that classic, with you using all sorts of weird implements to bash in the baddies heads! It does add a few tricks of its own too though, with a selection of vehicles to control such as a boat to battle zombie pirates, or a hot-rod style buggy thing to traverse the roads...

Sadly though, the game has a few issues, chief of which is the camera. It quite often picks a weird angle to show you, and although it can be swapped between a close up view, or one that gives a slightly more top-down look to the game, it would be better if it gave you full control over it instead of it being semi-fixed. The controls can sometimes feel a bit janky too, and sometimes the gameplay does some weird things, and jumping around the levels can be frustrating.

So a gem, but a flawed one then! Interestingly, there's apparently an updated version for PS3 that fixes some of these issues called Monster Madness - Grave Danger, so I'll need to see if I can find that one! I can still recommend this one though...despite it's flaws it is the closest thing to a ZAMN sequel that I've seen, and was a very pleasant surprise! Pick it up if you can!