War of the Monsters Review

Do the Monster Mash...

As you all may know from the various tabloid reports circling newsstands lately, the citizens of Earth have repelled an onslaught of alien invaders from the vast depths of uncharted space. They attacked with malicious intent and it is widely believed that they would have turned us all into appetizers for some kind of extraterrestrial cooking show. It's a good thing we blasted those suckers out of orbit, but now, we've got other problems to deal with.

A large number of destroyed enemy spacecraft managed to crash land on Earth, leaking a vile green ooze with extraordinary properties. This mysterious slime, or "kraap" as we in the scientific community like to call it, seems to be causing strange creatures of titanic proportions to appear and wreak havoc across the globe. The military has so far been ineffective against these monstrosities and it looks like no one is safe from the rampaging beasts.

But from their destructive behavior and constant bickering, I am certain that the monsters' sole purpose is simply to seek out and destroy each other. So break out the survival food and head for the nearest bomb shelter - it looks like we're in for an interesting War of the Monsters.

Eight monsters have been sighted so far and I'm sure that there are a few more out there. The alien ooze has exhibited an interesting tendency to gravitate toward classic movie monsters, such a lizard, a gorilla, and a praying mantis. Upon contact, the alien substance causes biomolecular structures to mutate exponentially, resulting in an unbelievable increase of the creature's body mass. The creatures' instincts then lead them to destroy dense metropolises with furious punches, kicks and other special attacks.

Studies so far show that these attacks are pretty simplistic. Each monster has just a few quick attacks, powerful attacks, two special attacks (one short and one long range) and some kind of projectile attack. They also do a fair amount of defensive blocking, but when two or more of them meet, there's never more than one left standing. It's a good thing that these monsters aren't martial arts stars or they would be mashing the city flat even faster.

My research has come to some interesting conclusions regarding the monsters' fighting styles. It's almost as if the monsters were just mashing buttons to make themselves fight. Attacks don't seem to be strategic, just flat out brutal. This makes for a very basic if action-packed battle.

Another study of mine shows that approximately 95% of a city will be destroyed if it is chosen as a monster battleground. No human structure can withstand the might of these behemoths, and it is recommended that anyone sighting these creatures should evacuate the area immediately.

The creatures seem to exhibit higher intelligence than the average person would think. They often scale buildings to survey the surrounding area, use everything from cars to radio antennae as weapons and have been known to seek out icons of health and energy throughout the city to refresh themselves.

Unfortunately, this intelligence has made them extremely hard to kill, as the monsters routinely demonstrate a strong sense of self-preservation. When close to death, the monsters are not afraid to turn tail and make a dash for the nearest set of health icons. This extremely frustrating behavior often spells disaster for any force that would attempt to bring one of these monsters down. I am simply amazed at how cowardly these creatures become when close to death.

I am also sad to report that the camera probes sent out by the scientific community have so far proved ineffective at tracking the movement of the monsters. Two outstanding factors seem to be at fault here. One of them is the speed and quickness with which the creatures move. The probes just can't seem to follow quickly enough and the result is a poor showing of what the monsters are up to. Second is the large buildings that tend to get in the way. Even our best tracking programs can't seem to lock on to the monsters with all these tall buildings in the way.

But despite these setbacks, scientists have invented a mode that will allow two people to take control of the monsters and make them fight. It would have been much had the method allowed for up to four players, but there seems to be a programming conflict when more than two controllers are active. Too bad.

Even when the monsters are done destroying the city, I fear they may unlock a few other ways to inflict damage. It doesn't look like their cranial structures will be capable of devising anything horribly creative, but I have no doubt that they will have a few more monster games to play. DNA samples also suggest that other monster forms or "costumes" may appear after the monster has completed its rampage.

In conclusion, it is my firm belief that this War of the Monsters will actually prove to be beneficial to the human race, if only for a little while. People seem to enjoy running out into the streets to watch these titanic creatures engage in fights to the death. Human fascination with blood sports makes monster fighting the perfect spectacle, but in the end, everyone gets squashed.