Introduction
Every so often a game comes along that revolutionizes the techniques and features applied in it’s genre. War of the Monsters is one such game. Not only does it further solidify the “Giant-Fighter” as a new style of game, but also it adds new revolutionary characteristics to the games that we call fighters. WotM even introduces a new camera technique that I think could become widely popular among games of all genres. This is no game to brush off; it’s truly one to savor. It’s not very often that great games such as this come along, but when they do it’s truly magnificent.
Presentation
I know, you’re all thinking, “Presentation? I’m sure this game has the most cheesy set up imaginable.” I know that’s what I was thinking prior to playing WotM. I thought it would just be all about the fighting itself, and never pay an ounce of attention to setting mood or worrying about themes. Let me just say...you and I are both wrong! Ok, I can’t say that the menus, loading screens, etc. weren’t cheesy, but they set up an atmosphere that would have your parents weeping at the memories of their childhoods. They’d only be able to think of the many drive-in monster movies that they went to when they were young.
The theme and atmosphere running through this game is equal to the monster-horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s. You get the classic lines such as, “The fate of the world hangs in the balance!” and “See the EARTH-SHAKING HORROR!” And every loading page has the classic style posters from the monster-horror movies. The posters usually have to do with the battle you’re fighting or where the battle is taking place. It’s amazing to me that the creators of the game would go through and make a different poster with unique actors, pictures, and titles for each one! The menus, character, and level selection screens are all on top of a drive-in movie screen. Incog even went as far as writing the instruction manual as a newspaper report! They thought of everything, and it’s wonderful! Don’t get me wrong, it is all pretty corny, but the devotion Incog had to take a cheesy presentation and make it come out looking cool is very admirable. They stayed true to the theme and were perfect at setting the mood for the game.
Graphics
Unfortunately, the praise has to stop for a while. I was having so much fun, too! Oh well, cest la vie! The graphics of War of the Monsters aren’t praise worthy at all. On the other hand they aren’t laughable either. They’re meant to be simple and somewhat cartoony to fit the theme, and I think that’s all they are. They don’t make any artistic statements, and quite frankly it would be pointless to make beautiful scenery that’s just going to be demolished a few minutes into the game. They’re nothing special, but they aren’t necessarily a downfall of the game. The graphics fit their purpose perfectly, that being to be there, and then go away.
Sound
Nope. Don’t get excited yet. We’re still in the non-praise portion of this review. There are two parts to the sound of a game: music and sound effects. The sound effects of this game are actually really good. There are many different sounds that are completely fitting for the game. The loud and amazing sounds of the special attacks are some of my favorite. The best sound effect though are the explosions. They’re incredibly satisfying. The sound effects are perfect for the theme of the game, and I have no beef with them.
And then there was music. This game boasts the most repetitive music I’ve heard since Civilization II for the Playstation. It’s terrible! After you’ve been playing the game for hours and hours it can get really annoying! There’s a serious lack of variety in the music department, and what is there isn’t all that great. It seems Incog had an orchestra in Utah do the music, and it’s not really even up to par with most respected orchestras. Don’t get me wrong. The music that is there fits the theme very well. Incog made sure that everything went well with the recurring theme of 1950’s monster movies. But there just isn’t enough different music! During a battle you never hear different songs! Even if you’re playing an endurance game that’s lasted an hour, you still have never heard a variation in the tunes. I highly suggest going to the options and turning the FX volume to the max, and the music volume to the minimum.
Gameplay
Now you can get excited! Here’s the good stuff!!! I can quite honestly say this game is among the top 5 most entertaining and fun games I’ve played in my entire gaming career. This game boasts great innovations and even better gameplay. It has many great features. One of the most incredible attributes of this game is the variety. It’s a new and different battle every single time you play. War of the Monsters has two general modes of play: 1 Player and 2 Player.
The 1 Player mode has three different game modes to play in. They are Adventure, Free-For-All, and my personal favorite Endurance. Adventure is obviously the story mode. It is the equivalent of a full-length monster movie ported to a video game. You fight a boss and then either fight more bosses or you move to the next world. Token-wise this mode is very rewarding. On Easy difficulty the story mode doesn’t present much of a challenge, but is very good for those that are brand new to the game. Experienced beasts will have a challenge with the Hard difficulty setting, so there’s always a replay value in the Adventure mode. The story isn’t any amazing masterpiece, but it gets the job done. In fact, the story isn’t much more than what is introduced with the opening FMV. But who expects much from the story when you have a title like War of the Monsters? Not me.
The Free-For-All mode lets you set up how many CPU monsters you want to fight against, and it allows you to choose how you want the scoring of your battle to be set up. The choices are Sudden Death, First to 1-10 wins, or Unlimited play. This is good if you’ve got a quick minute to play the game, or if you just want to test out certain characters. I personally use this mode quite often to check out new suits that I’ve unlocked for the monsters. Every monster has up to 4 suits, and some of them are really cool! You can even unlock a Sweet Tooth skin for Agamo!
Endurance is a real test of your stamina and skill. You choose your monster and arena and then you fight to the death! This is by far my favorite one player mode, because I can easily fight a lot of different monsters and earn ample tokens in the process! The CPU will cycle through 5 or so different monsters. Every time you kill one a new one shows up in the level ready to fight, and you have to cope with starting out behind in health. I’ve found that this mode is the fastest way to earn a lot of tokens if you’re like me and you have to unlock everything.
The 2 Player mode is also broken down into three various modes: Free-For-All, Elimination, and Mini-Games. Like the 1 Player Free-For-All mode, the 2 Player version allows you and a friend to set up exactly how you want to do battle. You choose your arena, how many CPU monsters you want to play against(up to 2), and you choose your monsters and what they’ll look like! This mode is the best if you have a lot of people that want to play the game, because you can rebuild the city. Being able to rebuild the city and start a new fight makes it very easy to play a “winner stays on” style of game with your friends. This is the duke-it-out, “I’m better than you!”, ultimate slugfest mode. My friends know well enough that the second we turn on the PS2 this is the mode we’ll be playing first!
The Elimination mode is by far the best mode you can play if with just two people. If you have more I’d recommend Free-For-All, but if you do have just 2 people Elimination is really fun. You choose how many rounds(in the game they’re called respawns) you want to play, pick your monsters, and then you’re ready to fight. But the thing that’s different about this game is, each time one of you kills the other, the winner gets a “win” and the loser gets to choose who the winner gets to be the next round! This mode is a heaven-send for all of you out there that have those friends that always play with one character and then use that character’s cheapest moves every time. Now you can just lose to their cheapness once, and then you can force them to be one of the monsters they’re terrible with! You get to beat the cheap one!
There are three different unlockable mini-games to play in Mini-Game mode: Dodge Ball, Big Shot, and Crush-o-rama. After having played all three mini-games with my friends, I(and I think they) decided that Dodge Ball is the best. Dodge Ball consists of you and one other in a small circular arena with little more than two podiums and the ball. It starts with a mad dash to get the ball first and then it’s either, “Kill ‘em!” or, “Ahh! Run away!!” This mini-game by far supplies the most entertainment.
Big Shot is a test of aim and your skill in using the “Dash” move. You both get 3 chances to “Dash” off a ramp and land on distant platforms that have numbers on them that represent the score you get if you land in those areas. It is a pretty interesting game if you get a tie though. If there’s a tie you and the other person start a “King of the Hill” round on a tiny platform. This round is usually over in a couple seconds, but it can often prove a quite interesting and challenging battle.
Crush-o-rama will remind many monster fans of the Rampage game series. Like Rampage games, the goal in Crush-o-rama is to destroy all the buildings as quickly as possible, and you can also beat on the other monster to keep them from winning! This is a pretty fun game, but because the city you are destroying is so tiny, the game ends hastily. It’s a pretty fun game while it lasts, but I’d always prefer Dodge Ball or even Big Shot over this one.
As I said before this game has a lot of innovative features. The most innovative is the fact that this game is a fully-roaming fighter. I know that’s not exactly a brand-new feature, but it’s something that many games would be a lot better for having. For example, just imagine how awesome games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter would be if you could roam all around and have a full view. I know that would take them away from the tradition in fighting games, but this game proves it is a great addition.
Another of the revolutionary features included in this game is the merging cameras. If you’re playing with 2 people the split screen will switch to a single screen that’s just like regular fighters when the two monsters are close together. But then if you move apart you both get your own half of the screen. Some have told me that this feature bothers them, but I absolutely love it! It makes it really seem like you’re in a monster movie when you both share the same screen and you’re bashing each other around.
The final great feature I want to talk about(there are more) is the fact that this game adds both fighting elements and Rampage-like elements together to form a great fighting system. There’s so many more moves than the typical punches of other fighters. You can pick up a myriad of objects(including your opponents) and throw them as weapons. Every monster also has a special attack move that is only allowed once you pick up the proper power-up, or your energy meter charges all the way up. The special moves range from an electrical shock to a barrage of fireballs. Like fighters WotM also has guard and even counter moves. I’ve found that learning to counter is very important when taking on CPU enemies. There’s still many different moves, but for your sake I won’t rattle on about them. Still there are other excellent features that I won’t go into. Things like the scenery interaction, aiming system, and the health & energy systems.
Conclusion
This is a very revolutionary game. If you didn’t get that from my review...you can’t read. I have this terrible feeling that this is going to be one of those games that comes out, amazes reviewers, but then gets left for dead by the public. I would hope that my review can at least tip a couple of you out there towards at least renting this game. After you’ve read this review, I would hope that every last one of you with a PS2 goes out and rents or buys this game. It’s one that no one should pass up. I can’t believe Sony hasn’t done more to advertise this game. I have no doubt in my mind that it will be one of the top ten games this year. It’s not perfect and it doesn’t offer everything, but this game is more fun than any other I’ve played in a long time. To show you how much this game has affected me, let me just say that I own TimeSplitters 2 and I’m far from finishing it and instead I’ve been playing WotM for about 3 weeks. Most games couldn’t make me leave TS2, but this one did. Please just try this game. It might not be your style, but let me just tell you it’s incredibly fun!
P.S. I’m terribly sorry if this review is repetitive or terrible. I have to admit that I had to stop and go play War of the Monsters every time I started writing about how great this game is. I wasn’t lying above, you need to try this game!
