"Save Earth as only a monster can!"
- from the back of the box
This is what Ive been saying for years. Its only a matter of time before we make first contact with a hostile alien species, and sending diplomats to greet them would be a blatant show of weakness. No, what we need are monsters, men and women who have had their genes spliced and diced to the point where theyve crossed the line from human into pure awesome. Im talking about guys with chainsaws instead of legs, or ladies who look approachable but, when you go up to get their digits, they puke hydrochloric acid all over the place. We could find the small section of DNA that gives someone a natural predilection for serial murder, then just take that section and repeat it over and over in one long strand of DNA, then make a human being out of only that strand. Hand him a machete (no need to give this guy any explanation on how to use it!), stick him in a rocket, then fire him straight into whichever ship looks most like the mother ship. Thatll bring those alien bastards to the negotiating table... in a body bag!
This is kind of the idea behind Monsters vs Aliens, though developer Beenox executed it a little differently than I would have. You control a team of monsters who are not a part of "the establishment", but a hawkish general forces them to save the world against their will. Gameplay is varied, or at least appears to be varied, as characters are switched out frequently. In one section youll be beating ass as The Missing Link; minutes later, youll be wall-crawling and leaving a trail of goo on the ceiling as B.O.B.; still later, skating in a race of death as Ginormica, queen of the Quick Time Event.
MvA has a sense of humor in the same vein of every other animated Hollywood blowout, meaning the jokes are not funny but serve to create an atmosphere of goofiness. All of the cutscenes radiate an aura of stupidity. Because Monsters vs Aliens is based on a commercially successful movie, it has the feel of a "product" rather than a game. It is not art.
Character-Driven Gameplay?
The greatest appeal of Monsters vs Aliens is the ability to play as different characters, each with their own unique approach to unique (but eventually repetitive) situations. There is The Missing Link, a half-ape half-fish who serves as the teams tough guy. He is reminiscent of Marv from Sin City, but less like-able, and his levels play out like "God of War Lite"; that is, room clearing using a limited set of moves. B.O.B. the blob, an unnatural combination of food products that achieved sentience, is less violent but can slime his way across walls and ceilings, goo through cages, and slurp up enemies to trap them inside his amorphous self. I would say that his levels come close to being stealth levels, but he can actually bump into and slide around enemies before they have any time to react. I would also say that B.O.B.s levels are puzzle-solving levels, but its difficult to signify them as such because all of the "mazes" have the correct route clearly marked.
Then there is Ginormica, a giant woman who is built like a young boy--this could be a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective. Since she is a skater, her stages play like a racing game or a high-speed obstacle course. The coolest thing about her is the change of skating apparatus between each level: while escaping from a military complex, she wears jeeps; when in San Francisco, she keeps her feet snug in two sports cars; while stuck in the middle of the midwest, she wears two rundown trucks; during the final battle, she wears two futuristic photon-spewing things that defy easy categorization.
Occasionally, there is a great sense of scope in Ginormicas levels. While the other characters are always trapped inside of interior environments, Ginormica can zoom around in non-dynamic exteriors with wide open skies filled with giant moving enemies. Unfortunately, Ginormica rarely races in urban environments, which means theres never a sense of her being a "gigantic" character. More often than not she is matched against foes that are equally gigantic, thus hamstringing her claim to fame.
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