A Cure for Madness? Part Two

Somewhere between Monster Madness’ inception and its
execution, major problems occurred. The title clearly seeks to advance the Konami
fan-favorite Zombies Ate My Neighbors, from its awkward teen heroes, to its suburban
settings with similar antagonists. Graphically, Monster Madness accomplished its
task well, using the Unreal engine to depict its detailed environments. Controls
were cumbersome to say the least; jumping was performed by pushing in on the right
thumbstick.  It was rather clumsy, and
should have been eliminated from the game during alpha testing. Aiming
projectile weapons was often an exercise in futility, and thus, players are
forced to use short range items. Still underneath all these problems, there was
fun to be had.

With the recent patch, some of these problems are fixed.
Jumping is now accomplished with the “A” button, dodging with “B”. Controls
have been tightened somewhat. Many characters such as bosses would stun or hold
the player, resulting in the gamer rapidly mashing the “X” button to break
free. This has been lessened somewhat, but was still an awkward and frustrating
game design choice. (Stealing control from the player always seems like a bad
choice) The cursor for projectile weapons now changes color to indicate enemy
targeting, and is now make ranged combat functional.

However, The game still has its major problems- achievements
are frustrating sparse. Bosses are keen to repeat two or three phrases ad nauseam,
perhaps a holdover from the game’s sixteen-bit origins. The framerate nearly
constantly struggles after the third level, despite indicated ‘improvements’ from
the development team.

While the patch improved Monster Madness: Battle for
Suburbia, all of the fixes in the patch should have been smoothed during play testing.
The game does offer some mindless hack and lack fun, but more care should have gone
into the game’s retail release. With more development time, the game could have
been a good performer at retail channels; it clearly had potential and pedigree.
As it stands, Monster Madness should probably be remembered more for its dangerous
precedent, than for its gameplay.