January 27th, 2003 (12:00am) - Atari is bringing "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee," a one-to-four player monster-on-monster fighting game, to the Xbox video game system from Microsoft in Spring 2003. Based on the classic movie characters created by Toho Co., Ltd., the game recreates the look and feel of the titanic film legends and challenges players to punch, kick, stomp, throw and blast each other in massive, city-wide arenas. "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee," developed by Pipeworks Software, is currently available on the Nintendo GameCube.
"Bringing the biggest and baddest monsters to the biggest and baddest console was a natural fit," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Infogrames’ Los Angeles studio. "With the power of the Xbox, ’Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee’ captures the epic look and scale that is the promise of the landmark movies and the nuclear-powered goliaths have never seemed so real. Four player slugfests with buildings, gas tankers and cargo ships flying through the air create the ultimate party game on the Xbox!"
"Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee" pits gamers as their favorite giant monster against other escapees from Monster Island. The game was awarded "Runner-up" as the Best Fighting Game of the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
In addition to the single-player Adventure Mode, the game includes four additional play styles: Versus Mode, a one on one epic battle royal; Destruction Mode, a timed challenge to see which player can destroy more of a city in a given amount of time; Survival Mode, the ultimate test of a player’s skill, pitting him against monster after monster with the score based on the number of enemies defeated before losing a match; and Melee Mode, a one-to-four player points-based multiplayer slugfest.
The game features an epic sense of scope and scale, with 10 massive real-world and fantasy fighting arenas, including San Francisco, Tokyo and the notorious Monster Island, that are fully 3D and totally interactive. Players can pick up and throw buildings and landmarks like Big Ben, toss enemies into vast fuel tank farms and stomp on baseball stadiums. "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee" also features additional hidden, unlockable areas only found on the Xbox. Each city has been created with amazing attention to detail, including working traffic lights, blinking neon signs and moving cars, buses and tanker trucks.
More than 10 licensed monsters, each carefully modeled from the record-setting movie franchise, appear in the game including Godzilla 90’s, Mechagodzilla, Megalon, Destoroyah, King Ghidorah, Mothra and many more. Each character is equipped with basic fighting maneuvers like kicks, punches, jumps, projectile attacks and blocks. For more hardcore fighting fans, "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee" includes a robust combo system and special attacks that are unique to each creature’s abilities from the original movies. Power-ups are dropped into the arena by alien ships and hidden within city buildings, providing health and other enhanced abilities.
New features for Xbox include:
New monster: Mechagodzilla 3 (from the latest Godzilla film release in Japan) joins the cast.
New arenas: Vortaak Home World. The alien’s home world, features new challenges like volcanoes, spaceship launchers, installation-protection missiles, and plenty of alien buildings to throw. Boxing Ring, the largest boxing ring in the world constructed for monster battles complete with ropes, bells and blimps.
New Computer AI: One gamer can now play a four-player melee or team game against the Xbox Artificial Intelligence.
Single-player Destruction Mode: Players can rip up a city - all by themselves.
Soundtrack support: Rip tunes to the Xbox hard drive and play your own tracks while you’re fighting as your favorite giant monsters.
Xbox Advantage Controls: The extra buttons on the Xbox make it easier to grab monsters and buildings. In addition, the Xbox features improved responsiveness, combos and collision detection.
Better visuals: The unmatched graphical prowess of the Xbox hardware allows for better visuals treats, like reflection maps on buildings, true bump mapping, improved animations, smokestacks that emit smoke, better impact effects, specular highlights, bright high-resolution skies, improved lighting model, improved terrain, high resolution city selection movies and high resolution textures.
Improved Speed: Solid frame-rate and faster loading times.
Multiple Saved Games: Up to four players can save their progress on the Xbox hard drive.
For more information on "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee," please visit the official Web site at www.godzillagame.com .
My Thoughts:Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee is one of the most enjoyable party games available for the Nintendo GameCube, and if you’re a Godzilla fan, it’s also one of the best games available for the console. Xbox owners are getting a real treat with this enhanced port of last years GameCube cult hit. If you passed up the GameCube version of Destroy All Monsters Melee, then do not hesitate to pick this one up for the Xbox, when it is released.
