By Anthony Swinnich on November 13th, 2005

The best part about Superslam is probably the way the license is used; the game’s presentation is its strongest point. Shaba Games and Activision went the extra mile and created an original and humorous story for the game, rather than rehashing the plot of the movies. It’s not a long story, but it’s nice to see some effort going into what could have easily been a recap of the films. It’s also worth noting that the voice acting is some of the best I’ve heard from a licensed game that doesn’t use the original voice actors. It’s not Eddie Murphy doing the voice of Donkey, but you could’ve fooled me.

Superslam begins after the movies-- Donkey and the dragon are not only living together, but they’ve procreated. As unbelievable as it sounds, Donkey and the dragon had offspring called Dronkies (but with Shrek’s accent it amusingly sounds like "Drunkies"). Shrek, Fiona, and Puss-in-Boots show up to Donkey’s castle to watch television, but the Dronkies are awake and being rambunctious. Shrek and the group decide that telling bedtime stories to the strange half-breed creatures would be the best course of action, and thus the game begins.

Each bedtime story represents a stage in the single-player mode, and involve most of your favorite characters. The first stage is set in the Wild West-- Puss-in-Boots walks into a saloon and orders a milk and a cookie. However, the sheriff’s law states no cookies can be eaten in his town, because the sheriff is none other than the Gingerbread Man. The Gingerbread Man and Puss engage in a traditional Wild West-style stand off, and when Puss bites the head off his man-shaped baked good, the sheriff throws down his gloves to enforce the law.

What follows is a one-on-one fight that feels like a strange amalgamation of Power Stone and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Like Power Stone, the stages are extremely destructible, and the first level shows this off nicely. The stairs leading to the second floor can be shattered, the windows can be blown out by characters flying through them, tables and chairs can be broken-- what’s most impressive about this is that each stage has their own individual types of destructible elements.

Some of the items in a stage can be used as weapons. Quasimodo’s stage for example is filled with weights that can be tossed about to cause damage, and Humpty Dumpty’s stage gives players a sword. Weapons can help turn the tide in a battle, but they aren’t as important as they are in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Actually, using the items can sometimes be confusing, because some of the items require the player has to hold L to use them. The game doesn’t tell you this, so you spend some time at first trying to figure out why you’re carrying around a gun you can’t shoot simply by attacking.

Most of the time it’s easiest just to fight hand to hand. Even though it’s a simple engine, it’s fairly enjoyable, especially in multiplayer. The combat is obviously influenced by Super Smash Bros. Melee, but that doesn’t mean it plays badly. Attacks can be charged for power, or you can throw a flurry of quicker, weaker attacks at opponents. Jumping attacks can be thrown into the mix, and a defensive "bubble shield" serves as a block for players who like to play defensively. The main object in a fight is to get more "slams" than your opponent. In order to get a slam, the player has to fill a meter that grows only as the player successfully lands attacks-- this meter replaces the need for a life bar. When the meter is full, a super-attack can be launched, and if it hits the opponent a point is scored. Whoever scores the most slams in a timed match wins.

The characters are surprisingly well balanced. Bigger characters like Shrek pack a harder punch, but they’re slower; the smaller characters, like Pinocchio are faster, but weaker. It’s nice to see Shaba Games didn’t give all the characters the same statistics and call it a day, because the game plays much better because of it-- you really will notice a difference when playing as the lithe and limber Prince Charming after playing as the hulking-yet-slow Shrek. There aren’t very many game types or stages in multiplayer, but the action is fast-paced and fun as each stage is well designed.

The main problem with the title is that the action seems to move slower than it should. Power Stone and to a lesser extent Super Smash Bros. Melee, move at a speedy pace; it’s a strange decision on the developers part to make this game move as slow as it does when it took so many other cues from the aforementioned titles; speeding things up would have really done this title some good. And while it doesn’t break the game, the button response just doesn’t seem as sharp as it could have been either. You won’t lose matches due to the character not doing what you tell them because it doesn’t happen all that much, but once in a while you wonder why they’re not punching when you’re jamming on the buttons.

The hilarious story mode is quite short-- it can be completed in a matter of twenty minutes. However, the console Superslam, like the DS version, features a thankfully more robust challenge mode. The challenges are a nice addition to the game, because without them there wouldn’t be all that much to do. Even so, things can get boring pretty quickly. The challenges aren’t as creative as they could have been, seeing as how there aren’t that many stages or game types, but almost all of the forty-five challenges have unique objectives. Either way, this mode is the only way to unlock new playable characters and stages.

Shrek Superslam is a good title, and it’s one that could have been great if a little more time was spent polishing up the mechanics, deepening the gameplay, and adding to the length. That’s not to say Superslam is a bad game-- it’s definitely one that Shrek fans and younger gamers will get a lot out of, just don’t expect an epic, genre-defining experience.